CNN's Amanpour: Journalism Faces Existential Crisis in Trump Era

CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday expressed concern for her life and those of her fellow American journalists in the Donald Trump era and said that journalism faces an "existential crisis."

"I never in a million years thought I would be up here on stage appealing for the freedom and safety of American journalists at home," said Amanpour at the Committee to Protect Journalists' International Press Freedom Awards ceremony in New York.

Amanpour, a longtime journalist, was awarded the CPJ's Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom. In her speech, she compared Trump to authoritarians Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and the Ayatollahs and urged journalists to keep working hard, investigating wrongdoing and holding people in power accountable.

"I feel that we face an existential crisis, a threat to the very relevance and usefulness of our profession. Now, more than ever, we need to commit to real reporting across a real nation, a real world in which journalism and democracy are in mortal peril, including by foreign powers like Russia paying to churn out and place false news, and hacking into democratic systems here and allegedly in upcoming crucial German and French elections too."

Amanpour's comments come after media outlets reported that Trump berated top TV executives and anchors at an off-the-record meeting earlier this week.

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