Kaitlan Collins
Prattville native Kaitlan Collins (1992- ) is a journalist who currently serves as a news anchor and chief White House correspondent for the CNN 24-hour news network. She is known for her pointed and penetrating interviews and assertive and direct questioning style in press events.
Collins was born on April 7, 1992, to Jeff Collins Sr., a mortgage banker, and Tina Collins; she is one of five siblings. Collins attended Prattville, Autauga County, public schools and entered the University of Alabama (UA) as a chemistry major, following the choice of an older sister. She soon decided that journalism and political science were a better fit for her interests, and she graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree that combined both fields.
After completing college, Collins relocated to Washington, D.C., where she took a job as an intern in the entertainment division of the right-wing Daily Caller website, founded in 2010 by media personalities Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel. In 2016, she began covering the campaigns for U.S. president when real estate mogul and former reality television star Donald Trump entered the race. After he was inaugurated as the 45th U.S. president, Collins was assigned to cover the White House. This new position gave her greater visibility in the news media landscape. She was invited on several CNN shows as a guest commentator, where she came to the attention of network president Jeffrey Zucker. Collins was hired by the network in July 2017 as a member of its White House press corps.
In 2018, Collins garnered negative media attention after tweets surfaced from her time at UA, in which she used an anti-LGBT slur. Collins publicly apologized, saying that the tweets did not represent her views as an adult. That same year in July, Collins was involved in a free-press controversy after an Oval Office press event, where she questioned Pres. Trump about his relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and about his former attorney Michael Cohen, who testified against Trump in a trial about payoffs to former adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Collins was subsequently denied access to a second press event that day in the White House Rose Garden. That spiteful response by the Trump administration raised a chorus of objections from multiple news outlets, including the conservative-leaning Fox News.
Collins continued as the White House correspondent for CNN covering the 2020 presidential election and was promoted to chief White House correspondent after former vice-president Joseph Biden won the election in November. She was one of the youngest people to serve in that role for a major media company. In September 2022, Collins was named a cohost of CNN This Morning, joining hosts Don Lemon and Poppy Harlow. Collins had recently been elected to serve a one-year term as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association for 2024-25 but had to relinquish the position in order to move to New York City, where CNN This Morning was based.
In May 2023, Collins was given CNN’s coveted 9:00 p.m. eastern-time evening slot, with her show being named The Source with Kaitlan Collins. Broadcast from CNN’s Washington newsroom, the show has a panel format, with Collins interviewing expert guests on various political topics. In November 2024, CNN announced that she would add chief White House correspondent duties to her role after Trump won a second term. She has continued to firmly question the president, who frequently hurls insults at women journalists, with Collins being a particular choice of attack by Trump and his press staff.
Collins has been recognized by multiple organizations for her expanding role as an important voice in journalism. In 2019, she was included on Crain’s NewsPro list of “12 to Watch in TV News” and Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30: Media” list. In 2023, Collins was named to Variety magazine’s “New York Power List,” and the following year, she was named one of America's ten best television news journalists by GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics and Time magazine’s “100 Next” list. The following year, the Mediaite news website ranked Collins sixth on its “Most Influential in News Media” list.
