It’s clear that Christiane Amanpour is not used to turning off her phone. “Oh I’m sorry, it’s my producer… I should really take this”, she apologised, as she broke off to reach into her handbag. CNN’s Chief International Correspondent and Anchor – the journalist followed by the largest number of world leaders on Twitter, according to a 2014 study – is rarely out of the loop when it comes even to the smaller details of global affairs.

Although she is best known as the face of one of CNN’s most prominent programmes, she considers herself a reporter, not an anchor. For Amanpour “it’s absolutely, 100% about storytelling” and she is mainly preoccupied with the role of the ‘objective’ reporter.

“I suddenly had, you know, one of those ‘come to Jesus’ moments… sometimes there is just not equality to be drawn, and certainly not equivalence. And particularly in the kinds of cases I have found myself covering ever since the first Balkan wars.”

She sees “a greater and greater politicisation of international information” and notes the pressure on journalists from major powers to report the story from their side. When I sought her view on Britain’s controversial red carpet welcome of Egypt’s President Sisi this week, she wouldn’t be drawn but, as in her reporting, for Amanpour neutrality always has its limits.

“I can’t get an interview with the President of Egypt because of the very loud and public way I lobbied for the release of my journalist colleagues,” she lamented, returning to the political pressures on the profession. Shutting down journalists has “a terrible, chilling effect on the ability to tell the truth”.

Amanpour, however, is clearly one journalist in no danger of being shut down. She made a name for herself in 1994 through tough questioning of Bill Clinton on American slowness to act in Bosnia which earned her the title of “the voice of humanity” from the former President several years later.

She is by now well aware of her achievements, saying that she “pioneered, in the U.S., anyway, this idea of an on-air television journalist working for two different stations. Pretty much for everyone concerned, especially for CNN, it was a win-win situation.”

However, in Amanpour’s eyes, a tragedy of the declining importance of the main TV news bulletin is that it is much harder for a single news source to have an effect: “Our leaders are able to duck issues much more easily these days than they were before.”

Nevertheless, there is more to Amanpour than the steely exterior of a woman so familiar with genocide and war. I began my next question “Moving to Iran -”, before she cut in “Moving to Iran? I’m not moving to Iran!”, feigning shock. It was a glimpse of humour rarely seen on air.

She then went on to speak with some optimism about the nuclear deal with Tehran, where she lived until the age of 11. “I think it’s the best of a bad situation right now… President Obama was brave. If things go as they are envisaged, it will be the most successful agreement of its kind ever. The majority of the Iranian population are people your age and younger… there is a huge potential human resource there. It’s so much better to engage these people than to push them into a corner.”

Turning (I now daren’t say ‘moving’…) to Cambridge, the life advice she would give to the young people here is to have “curiosity, mission, and purpose”, as well as working hard. She offered a sobering reminder that “people would die to get this opportunity – people are dying for this opportunity, people in countries that you’ve never been to and you may never go to.”

And in this last comment lies, perhaps, the essence of Amanpour’s reporting: an ability to explain a story in human terms, to make world leaders listen by doing so, whether they like hearing it or not.