As CNN’s Erin Burnett, clad in a blue sweater and light blue sneakers, prepared for her first show in New York since she returned from covering the Iran War, the most prominent item on her desk was three bags of red Wiley Wallaby licorice, a gift from her staff after two weeks away.
Despite a jovial demeanor as she welcomed TheWrap into her office before the show, Burnett, 49, admitted the come-down from covering such a high-stakes conflict was different than past trips covering war.
“It was hard to leave this time,” she said, struggling to find the words. “When you’re in the midst of something, there’s an adrenaline, there’s a feeling of, you’re committed, you’re a part of seeing something and watching something and then coming out of it is — it’s a very unmoored feeling.”
It wasn’t her first journey to the region, and it likely won’t be her last. Burnett, who has hosted CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” since 2011, has spent years covering all sorts of calamities at home and abroad. She interviewed Ukrainians in the country within days of Russia’s 2022 invasion. She took a flyover tour of the Pacific Palisades as fires raged through Los Angeles last year. And two weeks ago, as the U.S. and Israel launched their barrage of strikes on Iran last month that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Burnett traveled to Tel Aviv, doing interview after interview under threat of missile strikes about a war that’s killed 13 U.S. soldiers, 12 Israelis and more than 1,200 Iranian civilians.
On-the-ground coverage has been a pillar of CNN for decades. It’s had reporters stationed throughout the region since the Feb. 28 strikes, and it was the first U.S.-based outlet to send a reporter, correspondent Frederik Pleitgen, into Iran with permission from the Iranian government. His first live interview from the country was on Burnett’s show, reflecting the network’s prowess to “go there,” to quote its 2014 motto.
But such coverage has not been without criticism. The network has been under fire by conservatives for Pleitgen’s Iran coverage, facing accusations from the Trump administration for broadcasting Iranian propaganda by reflecting day-to-day life in the nation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also repeatedly complained about CNN’s coverage during press briefings, saying last week, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” indicating a belief that the Paramount CEO set to buy CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery might force the network to take a more administration-friendly approach.
CNN CEO Mark Thompson said in a statement the network stood by its journalism and only sought to report the truth. “Politicians have an obvious motive for claiming that journalism which raises questions about their decisions is false,” he said.
But such criticism doesn’t really bother Burnett, who returned on Saturday. Reflecting the on-the-ground suffering in person instead of relying on CNN’s stable of correspondents, she said, helps people “touch it a little bit more.”
“When there’s so much at stake and just so much suffering and so much loss and just these situations — none of them had to happen,” Burnett said. “It brings that home to people, just the incredible loss and pain that individual people are going through.”
Covering the war
Burnett arrived in Israel within hours of the Feb. 28 strikes via Egypt and Jordan, and within minutes, long days of live shots and little sleep began.
Her weeks covering the war have made for gripping moments of television. Within hours of her arrival, Burnett had to take shelter with a guest during a live interview as sirens warned of incoming missile fire. A little over a week later, as cameras rolled during an interview with Pleitgen, Burnett and her CNN colleague, Jeremy Diamond, had to flee inside as the sirens blared again.
The cameras stayed on.
“It just gives people a window into what’s happening,” she said of the moments, acknowledging it differed from areas in Iran and Ukraine that would get little to no warning before missiles rained from above.
Some moments offered a source of pride. As Pleitgen streamed into “Erin Burnett OutFront” on March 6, his first live interview from Iran amid an internet blackout, Burnett said the conversation reflected “a really powerful moment” for both coverage of the war and the network itself.
“All the macro things with television and all the changes and struggles,” she said, “in a moment like that, we’re as good as we’ve ever been.”
Propaganda accusations
Still, CNN continues to receive withering criticism.
A State Department official accused Pleitgen of spreading “pro-Iran regime propaganda” earlier this month for documenting how Iranians were still able to purchase gas and groceries, prompting a network statement defending his reporting. Hegseth has also complained that media outlets have spent too much time covering stories like the six U.S. soldiers killed during retaliatory strikes in order to “make the president look bad.”
Burnett said the rules of media coverage in the region have shifted since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, sometimes making it harder for reporters to showcase all facets of the war. Her and Pleitgen’s goals have been to be as transparent as possible with their audiences about how they report on the conditions within both nations while maintaining editorial control.
“He goes in the country and he sees things operating as normal — which, by the way, we hear from many sources in it, not that they’re as normal, but grocery stores are open — and people were like, ‘Oh my God, that’s propaganda.’” she said. “But then when he goes and does the burnout buildings, they go, ‘Oh my God, that’s propaganda.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, OK.’
“You be honest, and you be transparent, and you tell the truth as you can report it and know it to be,” she added.
A looming acquisition
While the president himself has not commented on Burnett’s coverage specifically, a November report in the Guardian indicated that Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who is backing son David Ellison’s bid to purchase WBD, discussed axing Burnett and her colleague Brianna Keiler with White House officials should Paramount’s deal close.
Burnett said she saw the report but dismissed it as a “hypothetical,” saying she’d rather keep “an open mind to how they’re going to actually look at the company” and focus on her and her team’s work. Ellison said he would maintain CNN’s “editorial independence.”
“I come to work every day, whatever the BS might be going on around in general, I love coming to work with them, and I’m so proud of our work,” she said. “You think about what we did last week, it’s like, I couldn’t be more proud of what the brand does, what our team does, and I really believe in that … And I hope that they recognize what this company is capable of and what it can mean in important moments.”
As for the acquisition and Ellison’s public commitment, “I hope that’s the case.”
“Up until then, it’s business as normal, and hopefully it’s business as usual after that,” Burnett said. “Maybe there’s a part of it, when they buy an asset like this, that maybe in moments like this, they are proud of the asset that they’re buying, and that they believe in it, and I hope they believe in it.”
Still, she knows she has a job to do. As we move from her office to her studio, her light-blue shoes swapped for blue cheetah-print heels, Burnett primes herself for her first show back behind the anchor desk. Returning to it reminds her of “an incredible sense of privilege” and an appreciation of how “it’s all very fragile” —though she said she still plans to return to the Gulf during the conflict for more stories.
In a text message the day after our interview, Burnett said she found the word that summed up her feelings: “guilt.”
“Guilt for leaving and perhaps also, in some hard to explain way, for trespassing,” she wrote. “Because even though we go in the hope that more people will witness what is happening, we are treading in places — emotionally and physically (destroyed homes and neighborhoods) that are someone else’s.”
As I sit in the studio for a special edition of the show on Monday mostly dedicated to the war, I watch her pepper guests Cedric Leighton, a CNN military analyst, and former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) with questions about its future. Whether from New York or Tel Aviv, Burnett was determined to stick with the story.
