Leadership Quote by Christiane Amanpour

The most unsettling thing about Amanpour's line is that it refuses the comforting myth of the press as a neutral mirror. "We in the press" lands like a collective admission of agency: not observers, but actors. The phrase "by our power" is doing heavy lifting, because it names what journalists often smuggle in under softer language like "influence" or "agenda setting". Power is blunt. Power has consequences. And power, in a democratic culture that treats media as both referee and participant, is easily mistaken for virtue.

The verb choice - "undermine" - is sharper than "criticize" or "hold accountable". It implies erosion, a quiet weakening, a persistent chipping away that can be strategic, habitual, or accidental. That ambiguity is the point. Amanpour isn't confessing to malice; she's warning about capacity. A newsroom can puncture propaganda and still flatten legitimate authority through cynicism, false equivalence, over-amplified scandal, or the thrill of the takedown. The subtext is a professional ethics problem: if your incentives reward conflict and speed, "leadership" starts to look like just another target-rich environment.

Contextually, the quote reads like a post-Watergate inheritance colliding with the modern media ecosystem. The press learned it could topple presidents, then got folded into a ratings-and-virality economy where accountability can blur into performance. Amanpour is naming a tension many audiences sense: media skepticism can protect democracy, but it can also corrode the public's ability to recognize legitimate leadership when it appears.