Соледад О'Брайен: Американ журналисі және тележүргізушісі

American broadcast commentator and producer

María de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien (born September 19, 1966) is an American broadcast journalist and executive producer. Since 2016, O'Brien has been the host for Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien, a nationally syndicated weekly talk show produced by Hearst Television. She is chairwoman of Starfish Media Group, a multiplatform media production company and distributor that she founded in 2013. She is also a member of the Peabody Awards board of directors, which is presented by the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. O'Brien co anchored CNN's American Morning from 2003 to 2007, and was the anchor of CNN's morning news program Starting Point from 2012 to 2013. In 2013, O'Brien became special correspondent on the Al Jazeera America news program America Tonight, and was also a correspondent on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel until the show's final episode in December 2023.

O'Brien was born and raised in St. James, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island to Edward Ephrem O'Brien (d. 2019), a mechanical engineering professor at Stony Brook University, and Estela O'Brien (née Marquetti y Mendieta) (d. 2019), a French and English teacher at Smithtown High School West. Her parents were both immigrants and met while they were students at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father is from Toowoomba, Queensland, in Australia and is of three quarters Irish and one quarter Scottish descent. O'Brien's mother is from Havana, Cuba, and is of Afro Cuban descent. Interracial marriage was illegal in Maryland before 1967, so in 1958 O'Brien's parents married in Washington, D. C., where marriage laws were less restrictive. (born 1960), GE corporate lawyer Cecilia Vega (born 1961), businessman Tony O'Brien (born 1962), who heads a documents company, eye surgeon Estela Ogiste (born 1964), and anesthesiologist Orestes O'Brien (born 1967). Her niece is journalist Antonia Hylton. O'Brien graduated from Smithtown High School East in 1984. She attended Radcliffe College from 1984 to 1988, starting as pre med and English and American literature, but left to take a job at WBZ TV. O'Brien went back to school while pregnant with her first child and earned her degree from Harvard in English and American Literature in 2000.

O'Brien started her career in journalism as a medical reporter on WXKS FM in Boston because of her background as a pre med student in college.

O'Brien began her career as an associate producer and news writer at WBZ TV, then the NBC affiliate in Boston. She joined NBC News in 1991 and was based in New York as a field producer for the Nightly News and Weekend Today. She then worked for three years as a local reporter and bureau chief for San Francisco's then NBC affiliate KRON TV. At KRON she was a reporter on "The Know Zone."

O'Brien moved to CNN, where from July 2003 to April 2007, she was co anchor of the CNN program, American Morning CNN's flagship morning program that aired live from New York City. In 2005, she covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where she interviewed then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Michael Brown. It was announced on February 21, 2013, that O'Brien had reached an agreement with CNN to leave Starting Point for the new Starfish Media Group production company. CNN would provide funding in return for non exclusive rights to its documentaries.

It was announced on June 12, 2013, that O'Brien was joining HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel sports news magazine as a correspondent.

In 2023, O'Brien moderated a discussion with former Nickelodeon child stars that served as the concluding episode of Investigation Discovery's (another channel part of Warner Bros. Discovery) Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV regarding abuse with MTV Networks officials.

In 2009, O'Brien completed a documentary titled Latino In America, documenting the lives of Latinos living in America. She continued working as a reporter for CNN, mainly hosting "In America" documentaries, and occasionally filled in for Anderson Cooper on Anderson Cooper 360. She also anchored exit poll coverage during CNN's coverage of the primaries and caucuses in the 2008 United States presidential race, and filled in for Paula Zahn on Paula Zahn Now before Zahn left CNN in 2007. O'Brien anchored a CNN special, Black in America, in July 2007. The program documented the successes, struggles, and complex issues faced by black men, women and families 40 years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. In the first installment, O'Brien investigated how James Earl Ray, an armed robber and escaped convict, had already spent a year on the run a month before his path collided with that of Dr. King in Memphis, Tennessee. In "The Black Woman & Family", O'Brien explored the varied experiences of black women and families and investigated the disturbing statistics of single parenthood, racial disparities between students, and the devastating toll of HIV/AIDS. The fifth installment of the Black in America series aired in December 2012. Her report on children and race featured the work of Margaret Spencer, based on the Doll Tests of the 1940s, polling children on their general color preferences: "white children have an overwhelming white bias, and black children also have a bias toward white, according to a new study "

O'Brien's Starfish Media Group signed a deal granting HBO first look rights for new programs or concepts it develops. In fall of 2023, approaching the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, O'Brien collaborated with actor and film director Rob Reiner on a podcast series to cover the controversial topic, Who Killed JFK?. At the hearing, she accused Lou Dobbs and Tucker Carlson of disinformation, and also claimed MSNBC anchors Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell were spreading "Russian conspiracy theories".

In June 2013, O'Brien formed the production and distribution company Starfish Media Group. Starfish Media Group signed a deal to produce a series of hour long documentary specials for Al Jazeera America. In September 2016, O'Brien became a host of the Hearst Television show, Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien; in addition to its broadcast availability, it is carried by FYI on Sunday mornings (a network Hearst partly owns). In 2018, O'Brien hosted the documentary series Mysteries & Scandals on Oxygen.

From 2013 to 2016, O'Brien was moderator of National Geographic Bee, replacing Alex Trebek who moderated for 25 plus years. In 2014, O'Brien co taught a Harvard University Graduate School of Education class with Professor Joe Blatt on "Advancing the Public Understanding of Education." In May 2022, Soledad O'Brien partnered with JP Morgan to advise and give a lecture at the company's financial health education, wealth building, and financial inclusion for Dallas' Black and Hispanic communities. O'Brien took the stage to discuss potential impacts and value of the event and its subsequent activity. As an Adviser to the summit, O'Brien stated she had made it her mission to ensure that the event isn't and won't be lip service without action and outlined plans for future events.

In 1995, O'Brien married Bradford "Brad" Raymond, co head of investment banking at Stifel. They have four children: two daughters, Sofia (October 2000) and Cecilia (March 2002), and twin sons Charles and Jackson (August 2004). On the NPR quiz show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!, O'Brien explained that in Spanish her full name means "The Blessed Virgin Mary of Solitude". When she started working in TV, many people recommended that she change her name, but she refused. O'Brien has said she does not speak Spanish fluently. The foundation began in 2011. On February 7, 2011, O'Brien was inducted as an Honorary Member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.