KINGSTON, R.I., Sept. 14, 2018 — Carole Radziwill will share her experiences as a journalist, best-selling author, and longtime cast member of Bravo’s drama-based reality show, “The Real Housewives of New York City,” when she delivers the University of Rhode Island’s 11th annual Christiane Amanpour Lecture Oct. 24, 2018 at 7 p.m.
Radziwill began her career at ABC News as a journalist working for Peter Jennings. She was part of the coveted documentary unit, “Peter Jennings Reporting,” covering groundbreaking domestic stories, as well as, foreign stories in Haiti, India, and Cambodia. She traveled extensively on the Thai-Cambodian border, reporting and filming in refugee camps and with Khmer Rouge soldiers for the award-winning documentary “From the Killing Fields.” She was stationed in Israel during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and traveled with Israeli military personnel filming the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s SCUD missile attacks. In 2001, she spent a month embedded with the 101st Airborne Division in Kandahar during the U.S. led war in Afghanistan, creating the ABC documentary series “Profiles from the Front Line.”
She reported for “World News Tonight” and produced stories for the magazine shows “20/20,” “Primetime Live,” and “Day One,” including the story of a Vietnam Veteran’s anti-landmine campaign in Cambodia which earned Radziwill the first of three EMMY awards she would receive for a career that spanned fourteen years. Her later work earned her a Robert F. Kennedy Humanitarian Award and a GLAAD Award.
Her 2005 memoir, “What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love,” recounts her childhood in upstate, N.Y., her journalism career, and her husband’s cancer diagnosis, illness and death. The book spent twenty weeks on the New York Times list and is a national bestseller. Radziwill followed up that success with the novel, “The Widow’s Guide to Sex & Dating.”
Today she is widely recognized for her role on Bravo’s, “Real Housewives of New York City,” in which she established herself as the “voice of reason” on the drama-filled reality show. Her expansive body of work is evidence of her ability to share her journey in life with humor, kindness, and insight.
In addition to her professional achievements, Radziwill received a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the City University of New York’s Hunter College and a master of business administration from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She was also a finalist for the John C. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University.
Radziwill’s talk is sponsored by URI’s Harrington School of Communication and Media and the Department of Journalism and will be held at Edwards Hall. To ensure a seat to this event, the public is encouraged to reserve their free tickets online. A question-and-answer session and book signing will follow the talk. Books will be available for purchase.
The Christiane Amanpour Lecture is endowed by and named for the 1983 URI alumna and 1995 honorary degree recipient. She is chief international affairs correspondent for CNN and host of the global affairs program, “Amanpour & Co.,” which also airs on PBS. Launched in 2008, the speaker series brings well-respected journalists to campus each year.
“We are deeply grateful to Christiane Amanpour for her support of the journalism program at URI. Her contributions extend well beyond her endowment as she is an inspiration to our students,” said John Pantalone, chairman of the Department of Journalism.