Gorani spoke with Fairfax Media during her visit to Melbourne earlier this month for the Women World Changers Summit. It's coincidentally the same day as the second US presidential debate in Philadelphia.

Gorani, who points out she's not interviewed Trump directly, but only via his surrogates, takes the same view as CNN's president Jeff Zucker who admits the network gave much airtime to Trump and his rallies early in the campaign season: "He was always available," she says, so "he got a bigger megaphone.

"Then of course when his campaign solidified and it was obvious he was the nominee, that's when coverage of him shifted a bit. Also at that point he was giving more details. In the beginning he was super vague. He never had proposals, he wouldn't attach figures or details. Then once you do give details and it's run through a fact-checking process - as is the case with the other candidates - that's when the coverage shifts."

Much of the criticism from the Trump camp that coverage is skewed in favour of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been directed at CNN. "It's not true," Gorani says. "Just look at coverage of her emails, her foundation. It's been out there. She's been covered very robustly."

His sexist and degrading remarks about women also have not helped his campaign either, she says.

"All you have to do is fact check Donald Trump and it will appear as though somehow you're giving Hillary an easier time," she says. "But if there's more to fact check and correct that doesn't mean you're discussing one candidate over another."

A question Gorani says she's asked herself a lot is why Hillary Clinton - until recently at least - hasn't polled far better than reality-show star Trump. Her theory, and perhaps the US media's more generally, is that Hillary doesn't have have a natural knack for campaigning like her husband Bill or US President Barack Obama. And that the public - not just in the United States but around the world generally - has become anti-establishment. "All those things coupled have led to the poll numbers not being great," she says.

"This is why covering a story like this is so interesting," she says. "They are the two most disliked presidential candidates in modern history. But she [Hillary] was liked when she was secretary of state. Is it possible if she is elected president those [current negative] feelings will change? I don't know; it's a deeply polarised political landscape."

A journalist for over 20 years, Gorani has travelled the world and led coverage of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and more recently the Paris Charlie Hedbo shootings and ISIS attacks. She still believes journalism, despite its imperfections, remains a public service.

Sure there are problems with the way the media portrays Muslims. Gorani's family is from Syria and she spent time living in Algeria and France. She expresses a little annoyance over the often-used expression "terrorism cannot be ruled out".

She also says that, despite spending years covering refugee stories, there's audience "fatigue", so sometimes stories on the Syrian war or Boko Haram get less air time.

In the new age of click-bait journalism, and news instantly being fed to audiences via social media giants like Facebook (which she believes will end up becoming a news service) the balance between giving the public what they need to know versus what they want to know becomes harder, she admits. It's also the case that when news happens closer to home it's more newsworthy- take the Paris terrorist attacks that got more coverage than attacks in Beirut.

Gorani was herself criticised for "humanising a monster" by interviewing the sister of one of the convicted terrorists immediately after the Paris attacks. At the summit she defended it, saying: "we do these stories precisely because they give us understanding of the very things that make us uncomfortable, that disgust us and that scare us as well.

Though we live in a time where we never have had this much news, now more than ever is the role of traditional, solid journalism essential. ... there has never been more information out there but there's never been more fake, fabricated and distorted news out there."

She notes that even CNN, which still draws tens of millions of viewers, is "not perfect; sometimes we make a mistake". But, speaking for herself anyway, she tries to be fair and balanced. Her way of staying true to the craft is keeping a check on which guests get booked and which stories get favoured.

For instance, she says, the day Kim Kardashian got held at gunpoint, it was CNN's top-rating story online. While it was big news, it wasn't the most important, so it got included 40 minutes into her one-hour program. Or when attacks happen, her show refrains from booking guests that will immediately speculate that Muslims are to blame. "At the very least with all your flaws and all your mistakes, it [journalism] is still a craft," she says.

Gorani, who started her career in print journalism but moved to television when she witnessed the impact live TV had via the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, hopes that she will get a chance to go to Syria again when the war ends, and do a documentary retracing her family roots to Aleppo.

She says she's learned to dismiss the torrent of abuse female journalists are subjected to on social media. When things get too serious at work, she relaxes with singing ("smooth jazz classics and a bit of Edith Piaf") and interior decorating.

Gorani doesn't see herself as a celebrity journalist ("I take The Tube to work everyday"), but is thankful she has enough recognition that gives her access to current news-makers like French politician and president of the National Front Marine Le Pen and British politician and Brexit campaign leader Nigel Paul Farage. At 46, Gorani has spent much of her working career in conflict zones.

Last year she married photojournalist Christian Streib, but she says the toll of being a foreign correspondent for females is much greater than for men and often results in a solitary life. "By their late 30s most women are married or in relationship, but for female correspondents the vast majority are single while the majority of their male counterparts are married".

She also points out that despite much improvement in the way women anchors get treated, there's still greater focus on their appearance than a man's. "If you're under constant pressure to look like you're under 40 it's very difficult," she says, joking she moisturises three times a day.

"Male anchors can be older, greying, overweight and still be fine." And she could never do what Australian television personality Karl Stefanovic did - he wore the same blue suit on TV for a year to show the disparity in the way men and women are treated. "Men can get away with this stuff all the time. A woman: forget it," Gorani says.

It's also unfortunate, she says, that there are still no female Fortune 500 media executives (women currently hold just 23 of CEO positions in those companies). And while she doesn't go far as calling for quotas, she remains hopeful that more women will move into those roles. She also wishes women, more generally, are seen as equals.

"Women don't need to be revered or championed," she said in her speech at the summit. "They don't even need to be labelled wives or daughters... in the end, like men, women are simply human beings; they should not be reduced to the many roles they fulfil in their lives."