North Star: Soledad O’Brien On Listening, Point of View, Stories, Fairness and Values
Iconic broadcaster, CEO, author, philanthropist and documentarian Soledad O’Brien shares her advice with two cohorts of 50 Women Can Change The World in Journalism.
“As an organization and an individual, you have to stick to your North Star,” Soledad O’Brien, founder and CEO of Soledad O’Brien Productions, told a virtual convening of two cohorts of Take The Lead’s 50 Women in Journalism Can Change the World.
““As an organization and an individual, you have to stick to your North Star,” @Soledadobrien told a virtual convening of two cohorts of @Takeleadwomen ‘s 50 #WomenInJournalism Can Change the World. #womenleaders”
“The story of one’s arc of one’s life is to figure out what your values are,” says O’Brien, award-winning journalist, speaker, author and philanthropist who anchors and produces the Hearst Television political magazine program, “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien.”
She adds, “I did that by 50. You need to learn, hear, listen to people. Your self-belief takes time.”
In a conversation for 100 participants in both the 2019 and 2020 cohorts, Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take The Lead, spoke with O’Brien about her life, career and advice on journalism, representation and inclusion.
“In a conversation with the 2019 and 2020 #50WomenCan in Journalism cohorts, @GloriaFeldt, president of @Takeleadwomen, spoke with @Soledadobrien about her advice on #journalism, #representation and #inclusion. ”
Read more on Take The Lead on 50 Women in Journalism
“My mother was Afro-Cuban, and she left Cuba before Fidel Castro came to power,” O’Brien says. “My dad is white and Australian.”
Growing up “tri-racial” in the North Shore of Long Island, NY, O’Brien says her parents married in 1958 and later had six children before the Supreme Court of The United States said interracial marriage was legal. “Interracial marriage was illegal in Maryland, so they drove to D.C.” to get married, O’Brien says.
“I grew up with a good sense of opportunity and a clear sense of discrimination and information about race and racism that my contemporaries in journalism didn’t understand,” O’Brien says.
““I grew up with a good sense of opportunity and a clear sense of #discrimination and information about race and racism that my contemporaries in #journalism didn’t understand,” @Soledadobrien says. ”
“Growing up there were no conversations about race.”
Attending Radcliffe College from 1984 to 1988, studying pre-med and literature, O’Brien left to take a job at WBZ-TV, where she says a white male producer she would not name made derogatory comments about her as a Black woman.
“I’ve been in television 31 years and have never seen him again,” she says.
O’Brien is the author of her 2009 book, Latino in America, and 2010 memoir, The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities. She returned to school and earned her degree from Harvard University in 2000, and is the mother of four.
In her award-winning broadcast career over three decades, O’Brien has anchored and reported for NBC, MSNBC and CNN, appeared on FOX and Oxygen networks, and continues to report for HBO Real Sports, the PBS NewsHour and WebMD.
Read more in Take The Lead on 50 Women in Journalism 2020
At CNN, O’Brien says, “We did nine years of ‘Black In America,’ then ‘Latino in America.’”
The lack of diversity on the team was stunning at the launch of the series, she says.
“We’re sitting around a big table having a debate on whether it is 48 million or 51 million Latinos, and arguing if you count Puerto Rico. It started to scare me that the team responsible for this didn’t know that many Latinos and if we argue about what we can google, then I was afraid,” O’Brien says.
“Journalistically, the conversations were fraught, but the stakes then were so high. I did take it on because if we screw it up, we don’t get to do it,” says O’Brien who has won numerous awards, including three Emmys, the George Peabody award, an Alfred I DuPont prize and the Gracie. Newsweek Magazine named her one of the “15 People Who Make America Great.”
Read more in Take The Lead on issues in journalism
Recently, the issue of who tells the story prompted a controversy with a New York Times photography project by a white male photographer, ignoring years of coverage by a Black female photographer on the same issue.
According to Peta Pixel, “The New York Times published “The Great Divide” – the latest entry in their “The America We Need” Times Opinion series and… hired Magnum Photos’ Alec Soth… Unbeknownst to him and the NYT editors, photographer and activist Tonika Johnson – a trained journalist/photographer with an MBA – had spent years documenting the exact same disparity in the same neighborhoods for her Folded Map Project. Social media criticism led to Soth apologizing, saying, ‘Her work is an example of long-term committed work that is precisely what the world needs right now. What it doesn’t need is photographers parachuting into complex situations.’ Soth further donated his assignment fee of $1500 to The Folded Map.”
Ignoring the expertise of women journalists of color is not a new trend.
“Ignoring the expertise of women #journalistsofcolor is not a new trend. #journalism #womendonews #newsroom #diversity ”
For O’Brien, the mission of her company is to make representation a priority, defining her company as “a documentary production company dedicated to uncovering and producing empowering untold stories that take a challenging look at often divisive issues of race, class, wealth, opportunity, poverty and personal stories.” O’Brien recently produced the documentary, “Hungry To Learn.” With her husband, she is founder of the PowHERful Foundation that helps young women get to and through college.
Read more in Take The Lead on Women Do News
“When we talk about point of view and bias and how we frame the story, it is about deficit framing versus asset framing,” O’Brien says. She notes that in stories, a young black women is introduced in terms of her parents’ criminality, while a young white man is introduced in terms of his potential.
“A lot of my energy and effort was on how do you raise that flag and how do we tell true stories,” O’Brien says. “Is there a reckoning or are we just talking about it?”
For the 50 Women Can Change The World in Journalism program participants in the virtual conversation, issues of newsroom representation and diversity are daily concerns.
“For the #50WomenCan Change The World in Journalism program participants in the virtual conversation, issues of #newsroom #representation and #diversity are daily concerns.”
Read more in Take The Lead on women in journalism
O’Brien says that is changing, but true inclusion and equity must move beyond awareness.
“@Soledadobrien says that true #inclusion and #equity must move beyond awareness. #womenleaders”
“They want to get points for solving it, but they don’t genuinely want to solve it,” O’Brien says. “Let’s not pretend we care.”
She says across all fields, not just journalism, employers and leaders need to ask, “Are we looking for employees in the wrong place? The idea is that it is all unknowable and there is a mysterious pipeline. You have to actually hire them, not just have a diverse slate.”
“@Soledadobrien says across all fields, not just journalism, #employers and #leaders need to ask, “Are we looking for employees in the wrong place?” #diversity #workplaceculture”
This is not the norm. The New York Times reports, “A review by The New York Times of more than 900 officials and executives in prominent positions found that about 20 percent identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, multiracial or otherwise a person of color. More than 40 percent of Americans identify with one of those groups. “
In a recent essay for a special project, The Newsrooms We Need Now in Neiman Reports, S. Mitra Kalita, vice president for programming for CNN Digital, writes of action steps to take to fix newsrooms: “Hire more Black people. We know what we really need to do. Do not say ‘people of color’ or ‘minorities’ or BIPOC when you mean Black. Say Black. Black editors. Black reporters. Black designers. Black teachers. Black doctors. Black presidents. Black vice presidents. Black senior vice presidents. Black excellence. Asians like me might cloud the lack of Black staffers when we report diversity numbers. Let’s get honest and more exacting on this.”
Read more in Take The Lead on women journalist innovators
Inclusion, diversity, equity and fair opportunities for everyone in journalism and the culture create stories, projects, documentaries and ideas that resonate and uncover the truth. And while some may decry that is not objectivity, O’Brien has a point of view on that.
“#Inclusion, #diversity, equity and fair opportunities for everyone in #journalism and the culture create stories, projects, documentaries and ideas that resonate and uncover the truth.”
For journalists, “The idea that nobody has an opinion on anything is odd or weird. Rather, I would like to understand their point of view. Otherwise are women not allowed to do stories on women? Black people not allowed to do stories on Black people. Are Asians not allowed to do stories on slurs against Asians on Coronavirus?” O’Brien asks.
“We’re in crazy times,” O’Brien says. “We have an obligation to say things people don’t want to hear.”
““We’re in crazy times,” @Soledadobrien says. “We have an obligation to say things people don’t want to hear.” #womeninjournalism #50WomenCan #femalejournalists”
