At a time of intense public scrutiny of the media and rising concern about misinformation, CNN’s leadership needed to make a case to its most important commercial audience — advertisers — that the network’s editorial commitment to truth and accuracy was real and personal. I was asked to solve that as a creative problem.

I conceived the approach, wrote the questions, and personally interviewed the network’s principal anchors — Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Erin Burnett, Jake Tapper, and others — drawing each into a candid, unscripted account of why the work matters to them. The result was deployed where it counted most: in closed-door advertiser meetings, and on the Upfront and NewFront stages.

The assignment was as much about judgment as craft. It meant navigating sensitive conversations with senior leadership, showrunners, and on-air talent; knowing what to ask and what to leave alone; and producing something that read as conviction rather than messaging. Work that defends an institution’s credibility to a skeptical, sophisticated audience is, in the end, the same work a firm does to earn trust in its own name.

Role: Creative Director · Writer · Director

Client: CNN · Ad Sales & Content Partnerships

Studio: Courageous Studios