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PROFILE Soledad OBrien

MORNING GLORY
SHARING THE WORLD STARTS EARLY FOR CNN HOST SOLEDAD OBRIEN. BY DARREN GLUCKMAN
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CNN

oledad OBrien cant breathe. Shes not wheezing, and there hasnt been an unusually long pause at the other end of the line. But midway through a conversation, she cheerfully mentions, I cant actually breathe. It is perhaps a mark of her skills as a presenter that this admission comes only after she has completed a lengthy string of sentences that make up a coherent paragraph of an idea. She puts the phone down and, for a moment, one hears the sound of one of Americas preeminent broadcasters blowing her nose. Mara de la Soledad Teresa OBrien, it turns out, has a cold. Its two in the afternoon, the middle of the week, and shes at home in Manhattan, in her pajamas, mainlin-

ing sinus medication. Typically, shed have awoken at 2:30 . ., been in the o ce for 3:00 . ., prepped until 4:00 . ., been in hair and makeup until 5:00 . . (you try looking good that early in the morning), done nal prep until 6:30 . ., followed by teasers until 7:00 . ., when shed have gone live, on the air, anchoring CNNs new morning show, Starting Point. And thats not even mentioning the postshow wrap-up, the next-day planning, the picking up kids from school (she has two girls and two boys, ages 7 through 11, with her husband and philanthropic partner, Bradford Raymond), helping them with their homework, doing her own, then arranging dinner, baths, and bedtime. So on a rare day like this, when

youre not on-air, do you watch the show, check out the competition, even as you unstu your nasal passages from within the folds of your duvet? Absolutely. I have a bit of a reputation. When I was on maternity leave after having my twins, and I was on bed-rest, I was sitting watching TV and sending helpful notes to people, if you can imagine. She laughs, thinking about how she must have come across, and clari es: Less-than-helpful notes. So thats sort of my M.O. I like the medium, so Im always very interested in seeing what people are doing, and how what were doing comes across as we try to build our show. Even though Starting Point has been on the air since January of this

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PROFILE Soledad OBrien

year, from her perspective, its still very much a start-up. Were trying to y the plane while still building the wings. e aircraft may be under construction, but OBrien, 45, is hardly a novice pilot. OBriens been soaring (sorry, were almost at the tail end of the ying metaphors) across the airwaves as an anchor or co-anchor since 1996, as host of MSNBCs weekend morning show, followed by lengthy stints (at least by television news standards) co-hosting NBCs Weekend Today with David Bloom and CNNs American Morning with Miles Not Related to Soledad OBrien. She then embarked
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on a series of documentary specials for CNN, focusing on race in America, and continued to work as a contributing reporter and occasional guest host for the likes of Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper. Bruce Springsteen has said that seeing Elvis on e Ed Sullivan Show made him realize what he wanted to do with his life. OBrien is asked whether there was a similar moment for her, one that crystallized her professional goals, witnessing the work of a particular broadcaster, perhaps, or a journalist. In fact, journalism television newswas a profession she more or less stumbled into after dropping her pre-med studies at Har-

vard. But the moment she cites as transformative occurred when she was 19, then a freshman, home for the holidays, and the gure who inspired her was her mother, Estella, a Cuban immigrant (and Johns Hopkins alumna) who taught French and English at the local high school in St. James, the tony community in Long Island, New York, where the OBriens then lived. e young Soledad had an arrangement whereby she could use her moms car for the day, provided that she picked her mom up at days end. at was the fateful day she walked into the school. My high school was not a diverse high school, she says. We had prac-

PROFILE Soledad OBrien

tically no people of color, and [at my mothers school] there was a boy, a black kid, who was probably 13 years old, who had been stopped by the principal, the vice principal, and the dean. ey were saying, Its okay, Mrs. OBrien, we have this under control, but she just wouldnt pass along. It wasnt a racial incident, but I think she was just trying to send a message to the kid and to her bosses that shes here to kind of keep an eye out. I remember thinking that this woman, my mom, has all this power only because shes standing there as a witness to something, and not going. In the end, they gave the kid a reprimand and let him go. And I remember thinking how crazy it is that this little lady, ve foot two, with her little Afro and her macram handbag suddenly, everybody is nervous about her and deferring to her, and the only power she has is that shes decided shes going to be a witness. It was only a few years ago that she related the impact that this incident had on her to her mother, who, she says, was stunned that her daughter remembered it. Bearing witness has been a core component of OBriens professional life as a reporter and the host of a current events broadcast, whether covering Hurricane Katrina or the 2008 election, and as a documentary maker with the In America series. Coming back to the original question, however: Were you inspired by any of the broadcasters you watched in your youth? My parents were very strict. I wasnt allowed to watch a lot of TV. What we were allowed to watch was the news. So, really, I grew up watching the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. My parents, both foreigners, were both interested in foreign news and do-

mestic news, and so it was a real topic of conversation in our family, and if you wanted to be part of the dinner table conversation, you needed to know what was going on. After determining that medical school was not likely to feature in her future, OBrien managed to secure an internship with the NBC a liate WBZ-TV in Boston. e internship was good for a college credit while she gured out what she might do next. She was assigned the Special Projects Division, which cranked out made-for-TV movies. But every so often shed be required to visit the newsroom. She loved it. Women would literally take o their shoes to run down the hall with 3/4-inch tape. It was chaos, but organized chaos, and I remember thinking that this is something Id like to be part of; this is amazing. And then I kind of realized, over time, that you had this opportunity to stand up for stu . Does this interest in standing up for stu , refusing to just move along, perhaps inspired by your mothers example, mean that you bring an advocacy mind-set to your work? I dont think so. I think if I advocate for anything, I advocate for good journalism. I would advocate more for Lets get a story about poverty on TV versus I support this legislation, so lets do that. I advocate for blunt conversations. I think thats the hallmark of what I do, but advocacy journalism is a very di erent beat. Do those blunt conversations ever make for uncomfortable moments when a show ends and the guests are removing their mics? I dont think so. You have to be respectful. I learned that early on at the Today Show. Bryant Gumbel was one of those people. He was an amazing

interviewer. But youve invited people on, and I think, ultimately, theyre our guests, number one. And number two, Im a person whos challenged by people who dont necessarily agree with me or who bring viewpoints that I dont necessarily even get. So Im like, Lets discuss it, Im into that. I dont look at it like, Were going to arm wrestle and whoever wins is the bigger person. One of her bigger journalistic gets was interviewing the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Michael Brown (or Browny, in the diminutive nomenclature of former president George W. Bush) at the height of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, as he attempted an everythings under control, nothing to see here narrative. What was great about that interview was that I had covered that story for the entire week, and I think I articulated what many people who were watching the show felt, which was, He is spinning something, and someone needs to hold him accountable. Did you have a sense that this could be a turning point professionally? No, not really. I thought it was a good interview, where a lot of truths were told in the questioning. I think our documentaries have been full of those moments, where people have said something that maybe they didnt want to say. I remember doing a documentary about education and talking to the governor of Tennessee, and he said, Yeah, we lied to parents about their kids scores. It was a stunning moment. ere have been others. I think weve had that on some of the political coverage weve had on Starting Point. e Etch A Sketch moment was on my show. And Governor
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PROFILE Soledad OBrien

Romney saying, I dont care about poor people. And talking to Congressman Allen West about Communists in Congress. By the end of a show, notwithstanding the preparation that goes into it and the stress of live television, shes exhilarated, likening the sensation to playing sports and coming o the eld after a game. ere are no real tricks to the trade, she says. Its ultimately about the basic tenets of journalism that still hold: listening, keeping your mouth shut, con rming with multiple sources, asking smart questions, and doing justice to the story. How have you changed over the years as a journalist? You realize that theres a lot of nuance, that good people can do bad things. People are

very complicated. I think you develop compassion for people, even when they end up in a situation thats of their own making. As accomplished as you are, what areas do you need to work on professionally? Im not a great manager of people, she admits. I never have been. And yet Im responsible for the livelihoods of a lot of people. I now work with a woman (Shannon High, Starting Points executive producer) whos a great manager. And Id love to be that person who inspires people to want to give 125 percent every day because they love what Im doing. In 2001, OBrien was named to People magazines 50 Most Beautiful People list. How did you reconcile

that with your reputation as a serious journalist and broadcaster? Believe me, that required no reconciliation. It was nice. But the irony was that I was pregnant with my rst daughter, and I remember throwing up through the entire shoot and thinking, is is Gods way of making sure you dont get a big head. Speaking of the Almighty, are you a churchgoer? Absolutely. I think its important and very grounding. And its really hard to do the job that I do and not pose the bigger questions about life and opportunity and death and destruction and devastation and natural disasters. All of those things, for me, have to be processed, and church is a really good place for that. But, despite her name, she doesnt proceed in solitude. She and Raymond have established a foundation (the Soledad OBrien + Brad Raymond Foundation) to assist young women from low-income backgrounds in achieving their aspirations through mentorships, career and nancial aid counseling, and direct scholarships. As she declares on the foundations website, she was haunted years after seeing the devastation Katrina wrought in New Orleans and the damage done by the earthquake in Haiti. I had met many young women whose life plans had been stagnated by terrible disasters, compounded by generational poverty, [or who] were just down on their luck. e foundation was launched in response. OBrien may be stitching the wings to her morning show, but shes already helped a number of young women create ight plans of their own.

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