Sara Sidner, an anchor and correspondent for CNN, has reported live from war zones, political uprisings, and natural disasters. But putting herself in the headlines was far more nerve-wracking.
Staring straight into the camera, Sidner announced during a January 2024 broadcast that she had been diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. She urged women—and particularly Black women, who she noted are roughly 40% more likely than white women to die from the disease—to get screened and “catch it before I did.”
Sidner, 52, didn’t always plan to be so public; at first, she thought she’d keep the news private and quietly muscle through her recovery. But when she learned her cancer was advanced enough to require intensive treatment, she realized there was no way to keep the situation to herself. Instead, she decided to tell the world.
Speaking so publicly about her health was “uncomfortable,” Sidner says. “It is putting yourself in this very vulnerable position where you know there are likely going to be negative comments. But I don’t care. Living, and helping someone else live through this, is a far greater power.”
Sidner has used her platform to share intimate details from her treatment, posting about chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation on Instagram and even allowing cameras into the room for her last radiation session. The goal, she says, was to demystify what can be a terrifying process—especially for women of color, who tend to be diagnosed when the disease is more advanced, and thus harder to treat, compared to white women. That’s true for lots of reasons, including disparities in socioeconomic status and access to medical care, but stigma plays a part, too. “Particularly in the Black community, and some other communities of color, there is a shame around it. There is a fear around just the word cancer,” Sidner says. “People are worried about being seen as weak.”
Sidner has demonstrated that facing cancer is, in fact, about strength. At one point, she kept a bucket by her anchor desk in case she felt nauseated on air. She also went for a run six weeks after a double mastectomy. She has even thanked the disease for “choosing” her and transforming her outlook on life. “We don’t have much time in the dash between our birth and our death,” she says. “Do you want it to be filled with stress and worrying about things you can’t control or aren’t worth your time? Or do you want to wake up in the morning and say, ‘Thank you’? I choose the latter.”
Though she’s done with treatments for now, Sidner isn’t done with advocacy. Next, she wants to raise awareness about the long tail of cancer recovery, which for her includes years of medications as well as early menopause. “That’s something we need to talk about more,” she says. “I want women to know that they are so amazing, resilient, and beautiful in their ability to get through it and work through it.”
