Chelsea steps into spotlight with TV debut as reporter

AFTER a lifetime of guarding her privacy, Chelsea Clinton made her debut as a reporter on US national television with a feature about a non-profit organisation dedicated to poor children in Arkansas.

The only child of America’s most famous political couple, Clinton, 31, appeared poised as she reported the feelgood 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 exclaimed on camera in the pre-recorded report, which aired on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams show. At one point, Clinton and Dove discussed hearing gunshots in the rundown neighbourhood.

After, Clinton appeared in the NBC studio and told the presenter: “I’m really grateful to be here with you.”

Saying that she “did deliberately lead a private life” until now, she explained 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 Center with Brian Williams, Clinton is set to host PBS’s live broadcast of “The Nutcracker” ballet being staged at the Lincoln Center in New York.

Reviews of her performance seemed to agree that it was nothing special. Common words used were “bland”, “unoffensive” and “competent, but uninspiring”.

A harsher reading came from The Washington Post’s Hank Steuver who said she lacked charisma and might be “one of the most boring people of her era”.