Chelsea Clinton makes TV reporting debut

13 December 2011 - 13:26 By Sapa-AFP
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After a lifetime of guarding her privacy, Chelsea Clinton made her debut as a reporter on national television with a feature about a non-profit organisation dedicated to poor children in Arkansas.

Clinton, 31, appeared poised as she reported the feel-good segment on Annette Dove, a volunteer who takes troubled youngsters in the poverty-struck city of Pine Bluff under her wing.

"Hi Chelsea, we're so glad to have you!" Dove exclaims on camera in the pre-recorded report, which aired on NBC's Rock Centre with Brian Williams show. At one point, Clinton and Dove discuss hearing gunshots in the rundown neighbourhood.

After, Clinton appears in the NBC studio and tells the presenter: "I'm really grateful to be here with you."

Saying that she "did deliberately lead a private life" until now, she explains she was "cajoled" by her recently deceased grandmother to become more public and said "I hope I will make her proud."

The daughter of former president Bill Clinton and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lived nearly entirely out of the public eye. Her marriage last year to a little-known hedge fund employee caused a rare media frenzy.

The decision to accept such a high-profile media job has prompted speculation that Clinton may wish to follow her parents into politics. Some have criticised the way she was able to get a job without ever having worked in journalism.

In addition to starting to report for Rock Centre with Brian Williams, Clinton is set Wednesday to host PBS's live broadcast of The Nutcracker ballet being staged at the Lincoln Centre in New York.

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