Lunch and Q & A with Cynde Strand
Join the Storytelling Lab for lunch and a conversation with Cynde Strand, legendary CNN camerawoman and news producer, whose 30 year career took her around the globe covering wars, earthquakes and revolutions helping CNN to become the pre-eminent 24 hour news provider whose storytelling changed the way we look at the world.
Cynde will speak about her varied experiences in storytelling: How does a cameraperson 'on the ground' tell a story in real time while dodging snipers' bullets? Conducting heart wrenching interviews as refugees tell their own personal stories against the tableau of larger geo-political narratives... What happens to the crew in Baghdad as the bombs start falling and THEY become the story. How can they remain objective when their own lives are on the line?
Cynde's later years running the CNN International Desk in Atlanta will reveal how news executives choose which stories to tell and the attempt to weave them into a comprehensive insightful overview narrative. She'll describe the evolution of CNN's 'Follow the Sun' strategy that's a relay race of various global bureaus handing off the 'power stick,' as the sun rises in cities around the world -- all responding to breaking events that constantly change and shape the way correspondents tell their stories.
Cynde's transition from 'run and gun' shooter behind the camera... to a producer who's responsible for securing the 'feed' to Atlanta from the remote Sudanese desert... to managing the multi-screened cockpit of the CNN International Desk -- sending Anderson Cooper on a tricky helicopter flight into a Haiti that's still shaking from the catastrophic earthquake... has all been at the heart of the way CNN tells the story of the world, 24-7.