Manifesting the anchor desk: Brian Abel’s journey from Western to CNN
From covering national policy at the White House to natural disasters like Hurricane Milton, Emmy award-winning CNN anchor and correspondent Brian Abel, B.S.’07, has racked up a world-class broadcast resume. And it all started with a dream manifested in a journalism course at Western.
“My good friend Scott Alexander was in a broadcast class with me, we also did intramural football together at Western, and he reminded me right after I got the job, ‘You know, you’ve been talking about this for as long as I’ve known you — CNN specifically,’” he remembers.
“It was a really good reminder that sometimes the biggest journeys start with a little dream in one place and also the ability for that place to foster that dream.”
For Abel, that place was Dunbar Hall, where he remembers journalism classes with professors like Sue Ellen Christian.
“I understand now there's a big studio [in Dunbar], but when I was going through the program, it was primarily print focused,” he remembers. “But I knew I wanted to do the broadcast side, so it was through those classes and then conversations [with Christian] that I was able to find a way to use and refine those broadcast skills.”
Through those experiences and an internship at WOOD-TV, he was able to land his first news gig after college.
“Fargo, North Dakota, was the first place to say yes when I sent my demo reel from my internship and my Western broadcast classes,” he says.
Abel worked his way up the ranks in TV news- rooms from Fargo to Grand Forks to Kansas City and Detroit before getting the call up to CNN Newsource as a national correspondent.
“Don’t mess this up,” is what he remembers thinking during his first live shot for the network. Then, his Bronco grit kicked in.
“The foundation that was instilled at Western has allowed me to be successful in this career because so much of it is adapting, and I feel like I learned that there by meeting all different walks of life, learning how to navigate some of my own mistakes and struggles," he says. “I wasn’t the perfect student at Western, but that environment and being able to learn from my mistakes gave me confidence.”
Abel was promoted to CNN anchor and correspondent in June — an accomplishment he says affirms his decision to start his broadcast journey at Western. “Sometimes the correct answer is the simplest one: Western was the right choice because I’ve ended up here [at CNN] as a result,” he says. “I wouldn’t have this without Western. This is the absolute dream job — actually, beyond any of my expectations.”