In Pursuit Of Excellence

International TV executive producer Armie Jarin-Bennett walked a unique path towards becoming a respected force in her field.

- Eana Maniebo

It was quite a jump. Armie Jarin Bennett, now the president of CNN Philippines, wanted to go beyond writing short spiels and delivering top-of-the-hour news at local radio stations, which she had been doing for almost eight years back in the ’90s. “I was working with different radio stations and fell in love with the news. I wanted my next step to be television news, but writing for TV and for radio are two different things. When I was looking for a job on TV, I was too junior for some of the networks, so no one would hire me,” she says. At 28, she decided to start over and pursue her journalism career overseas. She reached out to CNN, one of the most trusted news organisations in the world. “I wrote CNN expressing my desire to train there, and they invited me to come in as an intern.”

Armie was ready. She left her job as a news director at a local radio station, packed her bags, and moved overseas to Atlanta, Georgia, where the CNN Centre was located. “After a couple of months, I applied for a writing position but failed. Instead I was offered a more junior position as production assistant,” she relates. But she welcomed the idea of starting from scratch. “I was filling printers with paper, getting water for the anchors, scrolling the teleprompter—menial tasks,” she recalls. “But I didn’t give up. I was ready to unlearn my writing style to learn appropriate ones. It’s a different skillset and I was a total newbie.” Although she was by herself in a foreign land, Armie did not feel alone. She found a lot of support from her parents, who are both doctors, and whom she considers her greatest mentors.