Award-winning journalist and documentarian Soledad O’Brien is no stranger to covering hard-hitting stories that amplify underrepresented perspectives. Her storytelling of major world events from Hurricane Katrina to the BP Oil Spill has earned her numerous awards, including four Emmy awards and two Peabody awards. O’Brien has anchored shows on CNN, NBC and MSNBC, and currently hosts the nationally syndicated show “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien,” where she explores political and socioeconomic issues around America. She also produces thought-provoking documentaries with her production company, Soledad O’Brien Productions. As a philanthropist, O’Brien and her husband, Brad Raymond, run the PowerHERful Foundation, expanding higher education access to young women.
O’Brien visited SMU on Tuesday, April 15, for the Tate Lecture Series in McFarland Auditorium, where she talked about her decades of experience in the newsroom and the importance of local news.
The DC’s Managing Editor, Melanie Jackson, sat down with O’Brien ahead of the Tate Lecture to hear more about her upcoming documentary, thoughts on the current turbulent state of journalism and how she’s making education accessible for young women.
Melanie Jackson: You’ve served as an executive producer for the upcoming Netflix documentary, “The Perfect Neighbor,” about the death of Ajike Owens after a dispute with a neighbor turned deadly. The story is told primarily through two years of police body cam footage leading up to the incident. Could you share what the process was like with the director and the team to frame the story through this footage?
Soledad O’Brien: We had the most amazing editor, Viridiana Lieberman, and she’s phenomenal. When we were showing the film at Sundance, she would talk about how she had never done a project quite like this, where she had to basically call through all this bodycam footage to put together a story. Most of her work is in, someone goes out and shoots it, and they come back and you have an idea of what you wanna shoot. I think she did a phenomenal job. Geeta Gandbhir was our director and was very personally involved in the story. And so, just remarkable what they were able to pull together, just using kind of what already existed in the world. One of the upsides was that you have a story that very much is a true crime story, but is actually a story about policy. That to me was kind of a win in being able to sell a story in a very dramatic way, but at the end of the day, really examine a policy that in many ways is causing the death of people.
Jackson: I’m looking forward to it. Do you know when the release date is?
O’Brien: I do not know. They’ll do a ton of press around it when they’re ready to.
Jackson: In this new Trump administration, the White House is now selecting which pool reporters can report on the president. The AP is currently still barred from the Oval Office after the recent federal court order. As a journalist, what are your thoughts on these changes?
O’Brien: There are plenty of countries in the world where journalists are not allowed into the leader’s chambers to hang out with them. You do not need access to report. You absolutely do not need access to be a good reporter on some of these stories. It’s terrible. I think it would be amazing for the AP and any real journalistic organization to have access to any leader. I know when I’ve tried to call people and I want to get them on my show or get them on the air, it’s very helpful when they say ‘Yes!’ and then they want to come on. But you can do great reporting even if they say ‘No, I will not speak to you.’ which happens all the time when you’re working on stories, especially stories that are high stakes. People don’t always want to talk to you. So, while I think it would certainly be better to have access, it’s lots of countries- I mean, Trevor Noah was the one, we were talking about this not too long ago, and he’s like ‘In South Africa, lots of people didn’t have access to the leadership, and just be able to say, ‘Hey, I go in at the press conference and raise my and they call on me.’’ It doesn’t really work like that in lots of places, so you can be a perfectly great journalist and not have the kind of access that AP has had before, and AP will one day have again.
Jackson: Last month, Rümeysa Özturk, a student at Tufts University, was detained by federal immigration officials after co-authoring an op-ed. For student journalists during this time, what advice do you have for them covering the news?
O’Brien: Most of the organizations have some kind of faculty leader, for example one of the journalism leaders at Columbia is a friend of mine. He says he sits down with students and is really clear about the risks that they’re taking all the time. So I think my advice for them now is the same as my advice in any single story that I’ve ever covered that has inherent risks. Be aware of what you’re tackling, be aware of the risks that you are facing right now and always.
Jackson: We’ve been working on a story and we contacted a source to double-check if they wanted their identifying information out there.
O’Brien: We’re in the middle of a doc[umentary], it’s in film festivals now, and it’s called “The Devil is Busy,” and it takes place in an abortion clinic in Georgia. I’m very clear with the people. We are doing a screening. It is happening in the state. I want you to understand all the risks. The thing that is worse than anything is if people don’t understand the risks that they could be taking on. I think that is unforgivable.
Jackson: A consistent mission of your career has been empowering and investing in the lives of young women through the PowerHERful Foundation and your work in media. How will your work evolve for this upcoming generation?
O’Brien: It stays the same, honestly. I think the thing that’s so interesting and the reason Brad and I kind of got together in this non-profit was that even though we were raised very differently, both of our parents were educators. So you kind of realized like there’s a tremendous luxury in having parents who know how to navigate a system. Parents who were solidly middle class, upper middle class. There was never a moment where someone was like, ‘Well you might not be going to college next year because dad lost his job’, or ‘We’re not sure we can pay for next semester,’ or ‘We’re not sure we can pay for school and eat,’ or ‘You’re on your own.’ That never crossed my mind. So we’ve just tried to understand that that’s a luxury and to create that luxury for our scholars. So that once we commit to them, they’re going to college, and I’m always like, or we’ll all die trying to get you to graduate. That’s what my parents did for me, and that was a really, really big deal. So I think it’s just as simple as that. The times don’t really change. It’s just telling people, I’ve got you. If you have a problem, here’s what I need. I need you to warn me early so that I can get you the support to help you get to and through.
Jackson: After a long day of intense work, how do you rest? Do you have a go-to ritual or any guilty pleasure shows you might watch?
O’Brien: That’s so funny! People used to ask me that when I had little kids and I was like, ‘What’s reset? I don’t even know what that means!’ I’ve been really lucky as I head into my 60th year, soon, in that I found a sport that I like to do. I do a lot of horseback riding. I’ve really begun to find a lot of joy as my kids, my youngest, have now gone off to college. This sounds so boring, but like I can work out. I started pilates. I like going for long walks. I got two dogs during the pandemic. Just stuff where you kind of grab your time back for yourself. Doing your own laundry is a really nice thing!
Jackson: I love doing my laundry!
O’Brien: Sounds deadly boring, but it’s really nice to accomplish that. So for me, it’s just having time on your own to do the thing you want to do. Whether its [riding on] top of a horse and going for as long as you want, or getting your laundry done. I just bought a Dyson vacuum, which is amazing and you can pick up the dust bunnies in the corner of your bedroom. Very, very boring.
