On Friday, CNN Early Start anchor and chief business correspondent Christine Romans announced that she would be leaving the network after a 24-year run. In an on-air sign-off, her colleague Poppy Harlow called her “an integral part” of the joint, and said: “She is CNN.”
It may have seemed like dayside pablum, but it was actually a very insightful remark. In her two-and-a-half decades, Romans was never a marquee star or household name, à la Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper or Erin Burnett. She was instead, like so many of her colleagues, a reliable journeyman and team player who moved from assignment to assignment, show to show, and did so with admirable modesty and professionalism. She was very good on television—and, indeed, those are the very people who make a 24-hour news network work even if their faces only rarely show up on the promotional material.
