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Covering North America With CNN

Stacia Philips Deshishku (’90) achieved her high profile career in broadcast journalism thanks to a minor meltdown her first year at SMU. The political science major, at first aiming to become the first female president, called her mother after the first semester and said, “I’m not really meant for college.” With her mother’s encouragement, she signed up at SMU’s Counseling and Testing Center to take a series of aptitude tests, which pointed her toward journalism.

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Stacia Deshishku

Stacia Philips Deshishku (’90) achieved her high profile career in broadcast journalism thanks to a minor meltdown her first year at SMU. The political science major, at first aiming to become the first female president, called her mother after the first semester and said, "I’m not really meant for college." With her mother’s encouragement, she signed up at SMU’s Counseling and Testing Center to take a series of aptitude tests, which pointed her toward journalism.

Deshishku, who earned degrees in broadcast journalism and religious studies, credits a writing class with then-senior lecturer Kathy LaTour (’74, ’83) for "sparking in me a passion for journalism. She taught us truth and ethics and to be a communi-
cations purist, to say what you mean and mean what you say."

Today her passion continues as director of coverage for CNN North America, headquartered in Atlanta. Deshishku is the hands-on editorial leader for CNN’s domestic network, overseeing the national assignment desk. She works with show producers to help them determine the best direction and content for their programs. In addition, she manages 40 national assignment editors, as well as the relationship between CNN and its 800-plus affiliates.

For Deshishku, her challenge is to create a venue to "tell the stories of those less fortunate, to uncover the wrong and lift up those doing good," she says.

That dedication won CNN and Deshishku a Peabody Award for their reporting on Hurricane Katrina. She helped direct coverage as the site coordinator, managing all the network’s coverage August to December 2005 from New Orleans.

Deshishku first made contacts for her career by serving an internship with CBS’ "60 Minutes" while participating in SMU’s semester in Washington, D.C., at American University. After graduation she parlayed that into a job as a production secretary for "60 Minutes," then joined CNN in 1992 as assignment editor and pool coordinator for the Washington Bureau, and later as assignment manager for the Dallas Bureau. She since has produced coverage of numerous major stories – including the 1992 Presidential Inauguration, Million Man March, visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States, the Oklahoma City bombing trials and the 1996 Republican and Democratic Conventions.

During a chance visit to Macedonia in 1999, Deshishku met her future husband, Xeni, a refugee from Kosovo working for CNN as an interpreter. She had moved to Prishtina, Kosovo, where the United Nations Mission asked her to join the Office of the Spokesperson as a public information officer. She later became chief of television there, producing local programs as well as documentaries for CNN’s World Report.

When Deshishku returned to the United States, CNN offered her a position in Dallas. "I wouldn’t want to be a television journalist at any other organization because CNN is unparalleled in its international coverage and commitment to telling the stories of those who cannot do it themselves."

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