The Citizen Conversation with … Sareena Dalla
by Ben Branham on February 11, 2008 in Citizen Conversation with..., News
Sareena Dalla (MPP2) just returned to HKS after taking the fall semester off to serve as CNN’s 2008 New Hampshire Campaign Producer leading up to the state’s January 8 primary. Having witnessed the drama of this year’s unprecedented presidential campaign from a unique vantage point—heading up CNN’s NH mini-bureau—she took a few minutes last week to share her experience with the Citizen.
Q: So you’ve had quite the semester off. How did this opportunity come your way?
A: I had worked at CNN prior to coming here, and in 2004 I worked on the election coverage out of Atlanta. I kept in touch with the political team in Washington, and at the beginning of May I received a call from the director of political coverage, who said, “CNN is doing something different. We’re going to do state embed presence.” Other networks operate out of campaign headquarters where they actually travel with the candidate, and we were doing a state presence. We opened three mini-bureaus in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire. So I would be technically [responsible for setting up and managing] the mini-bureau in New Hampshire.
Q: So when you got there, you pretty much started from scratch? Was it just you?
A: Yes. The way our model worked was that we were sort of these one-man bands. We worked in partnership with an affiliate, so we had engineers to help us, but up until November when things started getting really heated we were independent. We would go to events, cover them using our cameras, upload video to the website, write articles for CNN.com and also serve as reporters to political correspondents. For example, if [CNN’s chief national correspondent] John King is doing a piece on the rise of [Republican presidential candidate] Mike Huckabee and had been tracking him in Iowa and Huckabee came to New Hampshire for the day, I would provide material for that portion of his piece and report back to him.
Q: What was your top objective early on in the process?
A: They told me, “You’re the eyes and ears for CNN New Hampshire. You own the state. Reach out to all the party officials and key players and consultants within the state. Build that relationship base, and know what’s going on throughout the state.” So I took time to meet people like the local fire chief.
Q: Who was the most helpful as far as sources go?
A: Certain campaigns were more forthcoming than others, so I’d try to build a relationship with their press person. But staffers and field directors also helped too in giving more access to strategies and state developments before they happened. Also, the Secretary of State [William Gardner] was a really great resource. People from universities—University of New Hampshire, St. Anselm’s—who had been covering primaries for four or five cycles. They were great with the evolution of New Hampshire politics and the transitions the state was making. And just a lot of local people. There were a lot of families who had done campaign work and knew all the key players. The nice thing about New Hampshire is that people are really easy and open. It’s a neat part of the culture of the early primary states—people are engaged and excited about the race, so they want to talk.
Q: In the end were you left with more faith in America’s primary process, or more confused about it?
A: Before I went New Hampshire, I always thought it was so bizarre the way the system worked. I always thought about Iowa and New Hampshire in terms of all the traditional arguments—unrepresentative and out-of-touch with the rest of the U.S. But once you go there, it really is amazing. You meet people who are just so passionate and so committed to the process that you can’t help but buy into it on some level. I met people who, literally, went to see every single candidate three or four times before they made up their mind. Regular voters. That was one thing that really impressed me. I walked away being really proud of the way people approached the primary process and how seriously they took it.
Q: After it was over, were you tempted to stay on the trail?
A: Yes. The opportunity to move on was presented to me. I would have been following one of the GOP frontrunners. But basically the way I decided was that I didn’t want to stay on to a point where it would be too hard to come back to school. And if I had decided to stay on, it would have been mostly likely until the inauguration [in January 2009].
Q: What was one of your more memorable moments?
A: I was covering an event with [CNN anchor] Anderson Cooper, and there was a hostage crisis involving an armed man at one of Hillary Clinton’s campaign offices in Rochester, New Hampshire. So I got a call saying, “There’s a hostage situation. We want you to go. Leave Anderson there to finish his reporting. You just go and check it out.” And it ended up being a huge breaking news story. I was the first one there, got to actually report on air for the network, then handed off the baton to [Cooper] when he arrived. That for me was the most professional, exciting, rewarding, scary experience of my life.
Q: What was the actual primary day like? We’re you surprised by the unexpected Clinton victory?
A: I actually spent the day with [Republican candidate Rudy] Giuliani, so it was a bit anticlimactic, to tell you the truth because he didn’t consider himself a contender in the state. But to be honest, having been in the state, I had an idea of the depth of support for Hillary Clinton. So it wasn’t that surprising to me, but because of the polls, to the rest of the network it was.
Q: And how was it living up there?
A: I loved living in the state. The state is gorgeous. And I drove all around it. I think I drove, while I was there, over 15,000 miles.
Written by Ben Branham · Filed Under Citizen Conversation with..., News
Ben Branham (MPP2) is a former News Editor of the Citizen. Prior to his time at the Harvard Kennedy School, Branham worked as a press secretary in the administration of New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He spent last summer creating “One Vote Under God” (www.onevoteundergod.org), a web matrix documenting the role of faith and religion in the 2008 presidential campaign as part of the national News21 initiative (newsinitiative.org). He attended college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in English. Other past jobs include waiting tables, mowing lawns, giving tours, and selling pies to raise money for people with HIV/AIDS. Originally from Chicago, Branham now lives in Cambridge, MA with no pets. He's a Scorpio.
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