October 30, 2023 • 53 mins
Isaac Mizrahi talks to Soledad O’Brien about the event that helped define her role as a journalist, her husband’s unwavering support of her career, what a CNN story about Britney Spears revealed to her and more.
Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Soledad O’Brien at @soledadobrien.
(Recorded on October 3, 2023)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Being a woman for me, was less of an issue
than being a mom. Being a mom, you had to
constantly convince people that, like you were still able to
get on a plane and go cover a story and
don't worry, we have a nanny. My kids will be fine,
and they have a dad and.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
He will watch them.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
You know, people would genuinely say like, oh my god,
so like who's watching your kids? I'm like, who's watching
your kids? Dude with five kids? Like, ron are you
talking about?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Msrahi and
in this episode, I talked to award winning journalist, documentarian,
and author Solidad O'Brien.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hello, Isaac, it's Solidad O'Brien. Looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I met Solidad O'Brien a really really long time ago,
and I've always been such a big fan of hers
because not only does she give us the news, not
only does she make these incredible documentaries and write these
incredible books, but she's also kind of fun. You know,
She's kind of fun to watch and funny, and I
want to talk to her about like this balance between
(01:16):
what is fun and what is considered appropriate for the
media these days.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
And how it's changed. Anyway, I'm excited. Let's get going solely.
Dad O'Brien, Hello, Hello, are ye? Well? You know, I mean,
I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I think the last time I saw you was in
California on the set of Celebrity Jeopardy.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
What was that like ten years ago?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Maybe more?
Speaker 4 (01:47):
No, I think it was a long time ago.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
It was.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
It was Yeah, that's hard that game, by the way,
not the questions, although I was very strong in the
Jennifer Aniston category.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I would just like to remind.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
My Harvard education went to waste because I'm like, the
buzzer is really sticky.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I don't know who it was that what at the
time that we were on together, but it wasn't you,
and it wasn't me. And I always think it's Michael
McKean because he kept winning because he had a real
knack with the buzzer and you know, like eighty five
or ninety percent of those things we all know. Okay,
you don't have to be a Harvard graduate. They sort
of dumb it down a little bit for celebrities, right God,
thank God, Oh my God. All right, So you know
(02:29):
what I want to talk to you eventually, like where
you started, where you ended up, all that. We're going
to go over that, but first I want to talk
for a minute about this idea of impartiality, right, Like,
because you are a journalist, right, you see yourself as
a journalist. You're an author, you're a personality, or a
(02:51):
lot of things. But I think you started and like
the thrust of what you do has a lot to
do with journalism, is that right?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Mostly I'd say, ah, my are based on journalism, and
there are lots of docs that are not, But I
would say most of my documentaries and our series are
kind of grounded in journalism. And when I'm asked to
join a project, it's usually to kind of add the
value of journalism into the project.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Okay, So as a journalist, I think you're behooved of something,
you must kind of remain impartial, Is.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
That right or what?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, here's the challenge I have with that.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And I started having these conversations actually when we started
reporting on policing in inner city communities, right, And because
sometimes impartiality means you just agree with your bosses who
are usually like older, middle aged white men, right, so
(03:49):
you so often you know, they would say things like
here's their take on policing, and so you know that's
not particularly impartial, but it's like, this is what we
all we believe this police come into a neighborhood and
they're there to help. And I will promise you that
many people of color in communities where police have more
(04:09):
challenging relationships, they don't feel that way, right, Their reality
is actually.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Well in.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And so so I think that the challenge becomes, are
we talking about being impartial or are we actually saying
we agree with this common theory of the people who
run newsrooms who are mostly older white men. And I
think that that is the challenge.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So, for example, when you go and say, actually police
in some of these communities by working on a documentary
and the police are doing wheelies in the middle because
they're trying to kind of scare the people in East
New York, I'm not going to say that the police
are you know this line the police are always there
to protect people.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
That's just objectively not true. And so I think the challenge.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Becomes the people say, well, you know, journalists shouldn't have opinions,
and I think people who genuinely don't have an opinion
on something are probably pretty under educated.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I mean, really you don't have an opinion.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think the key is to make sure that you
were making sure that you're reporting really looks deeply into
an issue, and you use your point of view to
either push back on someone or really challenge them. And sometimes,
I mean I believe in mid of an interview and
someone will say something and they make me rethink. So
for example, I was having breakfast with a guy I
know pretty well, and he said, I was boarding a
(05:32):
Delta flight and there was a picture of two men
you know those ads they do, like on the way
down on the jet bridge, And one of the pictures
was a picture of two guys, right, and they were
kind of like snuggling because they were on a plane together.
And he's like, I just felt that was inappropriate for
my five.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Year old Ah wow, right.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I'm lad.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And so he said to me, am I wrong? And
I was like, well, all I can do is tell
you how I think about this issue. So in my
point of view, you are wrong because you're three to
five year old. His sexuality has nothing to do with
looking at pictures going down.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
The Delta jet bridge.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Right, So I think what you want to bring is
not let me dictate to you here's how I feel,
but let me inform you with my experience and my
point of view. But I'm not going to pretend like
I don't have a thought on this topic. That would
be dishonest. And I think when journalists pretend they don't
understand something, they pretend they don't have a point of view.
(06:28):
That's just not accurate. That's just not true. If your
dad's a cop, you have a different point of view.
I'm reporting on policing. And by the way, I think
it's great to have someone say, you know, my dad
was a cop.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So when I hear these stories.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
They're really upsetting to me because I find it so
foreign to how my dad worked.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Right, That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It adds value, and the person can go out and
really do good reporting and talk to you about their
background and what they bring to the conversation, versus saying
I have no point of view.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
That's an I do think what you're saying is true,
and it is right, and it is somewhat modern because
if you spoke to like some other news anchor like
fifteen years ago or twenty years ago, they would say,
I have to say stuff with a straight face, and
(07:17):
I know what you're doing. You're going like, yeah, the
higher ups write the copy, they edit the copy, all
of that. But in for instance, politics, right, like, you're
not supposed to tip your hand, you're not supposed to
say you're a Republican or a Democrat. I think that's
gone for.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Good, you know, Yeah, I think that's true. Although I
think what's more interesting because I just don't care if
someone's a Republican or a Democrat. I'm much more interested
on do they call the person who they're interviewing out
as a bullshitter and a liar, whether they're a Republican
they're talking to or a Democrat, Like, well, I don't
care how they vote.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
It literally makes no difference to me.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
I do. I don't.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I have to say I care how they vote, you know,
because ultimately it really hurts our society if they vote
one way or the other, you know. So that's a
conversation that we can have, and I think it's going
to come organically. Let's talk about you, Okay. First of all,
my favorite topic. You look so beautiful in that sweater today,
I must say, that's a beautiful color.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Darling. Where are you from?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I grew up in Smithtown, Long Island, New York, And
in fact I was sent by NBC News in must
have been early nineties to Juilliard to work on my
accent and to lose, of course, very.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
We all did.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I went to performing our high school, and they taught
us not to sound like we were from Long Island.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
To Brooklyn exactly exactly. So I grew up in Long Island.
My parents, however, were both foreigners. My mom was from Cuba.
She was she passed away a couple of years ago
Afro Cuban. And my dad was white and from Australia.
And they met in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins, and then
eventually my dad became a professor and at Sunny Stonybrook.
So we moved near Stonybrook, Long Island, New York.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
And why did you go to Harvard? Like what you
just earlier in the podcast you said you went to Harvard.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Every Harvard person works that in in some conversation, you know,
I mean, you know at my time at Harvard.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
No, But I mean, what what propelled you? Were? You?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Extremely smart did you get great grades? Did you work
really hard as a student? Was are you like, you know,
like Rory Gilmore, was that like the thing you always
wanted to do was go to Harvard and then you
went to Yale.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I a little bit of all of the above, although
I didn't necessarily always going to go to Harvard, but
my older sister went, and then I had an older
brother who went, and then I had.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Another older sister who went, So I was very familiar with.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Ooh, amazing, were really smart people.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
They were kind of smart.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Also, my parents were very strict, so we just did
nothing but like sit around and study, and we were
pretty smart and we were pretty good students, and we
were not allowed to do a whole lot because my
parents were foreigners and they had the immigrant mentality around
education and so so yeah, but it's much easier, and
it's much I think it demystifies the process when your
(10:03):
sisters go, right, because you're.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Like, oh, my gosh, they're not they're not so smart.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But they can also tell you, like which cafeterias to
go to, how to dress, you know, not to get
engaged with certain kind of people on campus, et cetera.
But Darling you know, this is a question I ask
a lot on this podcast, and I love the answers
I get from people. Do you think that your education
(10:30):
was a really good kind of preparation for you?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
My into the wordcation was helpful, and in my business,
Harvard is a thing that helps equalize you. So you're
talking to a senator and you say, oh, gosh, I
was in Strauss Hall too, and they suddenly actually like
treat you better. And I think, especially if you're a
woman and a woman of color, there is actually a
(10:56):
study that says for people of color, for women of color, specifically,
where you go to college really matters. And I don't
think it's because, oh, my goodness, the education is so
far better. I think you can get a great education
in a whole lot of places. I do think that
there's a sense of oh, oh.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
You went to Harvard.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Let me you know, however I might have thought about
you or whatever, maybe bias someone had.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
They that it can have an impact on that.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
So it certainly helped on that front, especially when I
was interviewing people or I was relatively young as a
producer at NBC, and I felt like it helped equalize.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Me a little bit.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Right, of course, but you'd learn nothing.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
You know, at Harvard they like to say you learn
how to think, which means you don't learn any actual
practical things at all.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
No, nothing, And I remember, you know, Parsons was a
pretty good preparation for design, but it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I mean, the minute you get out into the.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Real world, you learn what the hell is going on
and how to get places right and how to do things,
how to get things accomplished. But so take me back,
because you finished Harvard, I'm assuming, right, and then you
did what how did you get started in your career path?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I left Harvard before I graduated and started working at
a TV station. I was I was pre med actually,
and and I decided not to go, which was a
lot of you know, my sister is a doctor, my
sister in law's a doctor, my brother in law's a doctor,
My brother is a doctor. And I really had this
you know, Long Island, right. The doctors were the wealthy
(12:23):
people in town. The doctors were, you know, on the scale,
the higher archy.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Yes, so I was like that.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Also also they can write prescriptions, which is always a
good point.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
So I wanted to be a doctor. And then you know,
I'm taking organic chemistry with my sister. She was sort
of had this conversation around, this is not something you
should do. So I didn't well, only because I wasn't
particularly passionate about it. And I think she sort of
pointed out to me, like, you know, if you're not passionate,
then it's something you shouldn't do.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You know, like she said to me, you're memorizing stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And back then, before I had kids, I had a
good memory, and I could memorize it and then regurgitate
it on a test. And she's like, you're just clearly
not passionate about it. And she was she's a surgeon
now and she's a great doctor. So I actually he
was right.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
You got a job at a TV station rare in Boston.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So right behind Boston the Harvard Playing Fields was a
station called WBZTV. It was an NBC station. It's now
a CBS station. And I got a job as first
as an intern and then as a production assistant. So
that was my first actual paying job, making eight dollars
a year.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Can you imagine forget you never forget those numbers.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Oh my gosh, go crazy.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I forgot what I got paid. But I'll never forget that.
My first apartment was four hundred and forty dollars a month. Yeah,
and so you started there and was that because you
felt like it was the right field for you to
be going into.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I didn't know it when I was an intern at first,
but then I went down to visit the newsroom because
I wasn't an intern in the newsroom, and I saw
people running around like trying to make air, and I thought,
oh my god, this is amazing. I mean, it's one
of the reasons I really like internships, because you'll tell people, well,
I want to work with people, and I'm a people person,
you know. But there's ten zillion versions of what that means.
(14:08):
And so I realize that I love a job that
is over. Like you do a show and you're done.
It could have been a great show, it could have
been a horrific show, but like it's done, and then
you get to come back again tomorrow and start fresh.
I loved the idea of doing deep research. I loved
the idea of being under pressure every day and having
to deliver, Like those were these things that I wouldn't
(14:28):
have known if I hadn't been in a newsroom. You know,
being a PA, as you know is I'm sure there's
an equivalent in fashion production, right, somebody who gets coffee
and they they run the errands, right, they do everything,
and sometimes they get to go on an important, you know, errand,
but usually it's something you know, running for us, running scripts,
this and that. And I was good at all that,
(14:50):
and I thought it was a great opportunity. I was
good at making myself useful. When I talk to young people,
I'm always telling them, like, you get your foot in,
and then you have to figure out how to be
valuable so that you don't just stay in that job
that people say, oh, she's really useful and helpful on this,
we should move her.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
So what was the first thing that occurred to you
that said, you know, I'm going to go here, because
I feel like if I were a journalist, I mean,
can you finish that thought?
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, I would say at the very beginning, one of
the things we covered was a Boston marathon.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So I'm a PA in Boston. I moved up.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I became an AP but when I really was starting
at the beginning, and you could volunteer back in the
day and work for free on a Saturday, So there
are no laws against it, and so I did, and
so I and my thinking was, if I want to
be a journalist, I'm going to need to one have
something to talk about that I've done that's not getting
(15:42):
sandwiches and running scripts. And number two, they're going to
let me be a producer on the Boston Marathon, which is,
you know, doesn't really mean a thing. I mean, producer
can mean a million things. And so I became a producer,
which made my resume bigger and better even and then
the printer broke actually, and so we had no printer,
and so I ended up writing the entire show in
(16:04):
a shark with another mouth. You know, but you sit
in an interview for your next job, right, and you're
like a funny story. When I was producing the Boston Marathon,
the printers died.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
We couldn't run scripts.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
So I wrote the show, and you know, and so
it gives you stories, it gives you something.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
New culture exact culture.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Exactly, and so that I sort of figured out early.
And that meant when I was next interviewing for a
job as a reporter, I was a PA and an
associate producer and a producer in Boston. No, no, I
left to take a producer job at NBC News. I
went to the network, and when I went there, I
knew that I wanted more responsibility and that I would
be allowed to start producing. And I know it's because
(16:47):
I told people like I had been producing. I was
responsible for the Boston Marathon show that we were airing.
I don't know that I was thinking journalism as much
as a job and working on a story probably be
more of the way I would put it.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Right, So it wasn't like a plan for you to
become this world famous kind of person, and you weren't
yearning to do anything.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
It was just you followed along the path. Am I
getting that right? I think?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I think that's right, And I was good at it, right,
So you're sort of like, oh, yeah, I'm actually pretty
I can get sandwiches and also start editing scripts.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I can do this and that. Oh I like doing this.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I had a woman who I was working for who
used to have me get her dry cleaning.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
People were so mad, You're not allowed.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
To get people's dry clean And I'm like, you know what,
this is a person who when I was looking for
an apartment in Boston, which, by the way, was so
expensive even back then, you know, and she would like
hook me up with a friend who had a basement
apart and for me to write. And I'm like, this
is the quid pro quota of knowing people, favors getting promoted,
getting you know, assistance, And so I think I kind
(17:49):
of learned that as well. But I wouldn't say there
was a strategic path. It was more of, huh, I'm
actually pretty good at this.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I got to figure out how to write scripts, I
got to figure out how to do live shot, I
got to figure out how to time out a show.
I got to figure out how to do this next thing.
But I'm pretty good at this, this and this.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
So when did you go?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
All Right, I'm not getting sandwiches anymore. That said, I've
had it, And when did you go? I think I
could be really good on air?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
You know, this is a terrible this is a terrible story.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Back then, it was the collapse of the Soviet Union, right,
So this was nineteen ninety one ish and I was
watching this anchor woman who was so mean to me,
and I remember thinking watching her do an interview about Russia,
of which was something or the Soviet Union that she
knew nothing about. And I remember thinking, well, shit, my
(18:40):
questions could be equally as stupid, Like anybody could do that,
Like she doesn't know a thing.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I remember, this is pre this is pre Google.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
If you didn't know and you didn't have an expert
on the phone, you could say, Professor Jones, tell me
what I should be asking during this live breaking news conference.
And I thought, well, she's she's really not smart. Anybody
could do that. I could do that. That's careful, but
that is literally what happened.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Wow, that's funny coming from like a Harvard graduate, you know,
like someone who isn't not smart, like you are extremely smart?
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I just had better questions. I mean I felt like
I have decent Soviet Union questions.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Did you have like a break or something? Is there
a scene from broadcast news like where you went, Like,
oh my god, this is who I am. I can't
believe it. I mean, what happened? How did you get there?
Speaker 4 (19:38):
You know?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I often tell people, young people.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I was at an event over the weekend in Vegas
and someone asked me my advice that I'm like, hard
work is often underappreciated. I don't really have like the
momentous event until much later in my career, because I
think the first decade was really just a slog coming
in early, staying late, helping people, doing it again, doing
another rewrite, telling somebody, hey, do you need me to
(20:02):
help you on this project?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
You know, just sucking it up. Now.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Once I got to CNN and I was covering Hurricane Katrina,
I think that coverage really helped define the work that
I would do and what kind of a reporter I was.
I think I sort of grew up on that. But
by then that was two thousand and five. I had
been at CNN for two years. You're already a star, darling.
You're a star by two thousand and five.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
Only in my own head, but no, I mean Celebrity
Jeopardy what like literally nineteen ninety something, So you were
already like a glamorous, fabulous star.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
You know, seriously, Yeah, but I don't think anybody would say, oh, solidad.
You know, she's the kind of reporter who does this,
like where you come into your own you know what
I'm saying, Like someone walks into a store and says,
I need Isaac mss Rahi because he makes this dress
and it's exactly what I'm thinking in my head versus like, oh,
I know him, he's a designer. Let me go over
(20:57):
here and look. And I think it became like I
stood for something and I think I figured out my
own I wonder if that happened to you, Like do
you figure out like, ah, this is who I am,
this is what I'm creating.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Darling.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
I'm still trying to figure that out, and I'm literally
strying to the Did you have, like any mentors in
your career.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Was there some like person who helped you?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Oh, my gosh, so many.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I had a great first boster name was Jean Blake
at WBZTV. She was the medical reporter and she was
a great mentor because she was so intense and she
was so smart, and she believed in quality so much
that you know, I started my career at the very
lowest levels, but with somebody who was like, precision is everything,
Being right is everything, never be sloppy. And it's very
(21:43):
easy to I think, enter the industry and if you're
around people are like, eh, here's how you fake it,
here's how you just get it done. It would be
it would be easy to kind of grow up in
a way that's a little bit sloppy, And instead I
felt like I learned at the foot of somebody who
was just obsessed with quality, and she also wanted to
do a lot of important stories. She was one of
(22:04):
the first reporters reporting on HIV AIDS. She was, and
she had to battle people in the newsroom who didn't
want to go on those stories.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
A cameraman.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I mean so like, she was just a hardcore at
every level in what she believed and what she did.
And you know, you look back and you think there
were plenty of perfectly good reporters who were not that right,
who you couldn't say, you know, stood for something. A
lot of people are like, hey, listen, I'm here for
a paycheck. I like my job, it's fun, I enjoy it.
(22:32):
But she was a really great first boss to have.
And then my next boss was her colleague at NBC News.
He was the medical reporter at NBC News, and same thing.
He was obsessed with quality, and we got to work
on a lot of interesting stories, and I think he
was very much a person who allowed me to go
out and just be in the field by myself and
do stuff, which I appreciated. So I was very lucky,
(22:54):
but you know, you learn. I think there's also people
who mentor you and you see bad behavior and you're like, oh, oh,
never do that.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I've met a woman who used to say all the time,
do you know who I am?
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Was?
Speaker 2 (23:06):
God, she's an acre woman. Do you know who I am?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
She telled me, And I was like, oh, God, if
I ever become an acre person, I will never do that.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
That's horrible.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
And what about whenever it was that you felt that
you were on a great career path, right, did you
have some kind of failure? Did you have some kind
of setback that you both remember and learn something from.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, I had a lot of setbacks, but not that early.
I think when I became a reporter at CNN and
started anchoring, you know, you ended up being on a
bigger platform. And I was doing a show I think
it was called American Morning maybe and it got canceled.
(23:50):
And the thing about being an anchor on a show,
a news show for CNN, I think it still happens
to this day is usually you read about it first
before someone tells you.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's not good.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, yeah, you know, and you realize at some point,
like everybody's been there. But so I think to have
something embarrassing happen, but to have it with everybody watching, like, oh.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
My god, did you see her on air today? She's
been fired?
Speaker 4 (24:14):
I was hard. God, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
You know, And so again I think you end up
learning about like what are the things that I believe
in and what are my values? Because for me, I
remember getting to say goodbye they fired me and my
co anchor, and they actually moved us into I got
to go to the doc unit, which ended up being
the greatest thing of my life. It actually made my
career as documentarian. It allowed me to begin my own
(24:39):
business at some point. So it it ended up being great,
But at the moment, it felt terrible and embarrassing, very embarrassing.
But I think, you know, you realize, like, okay, so
how do you want to handle this thing that's public
and awkward? And you know, who are you in how
you're going to handle this publicly?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
You know? It's funny.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
So the dad, because I had a very public failure
too in like nineteen ninety seven or whatever that was,
and I swear to you I didn't perceive it as
a failure. I swear like I kind of pulled the
trigger myself. I made the decision to close my doors.
But everybody was calling me and leaving me messages, and
(25:18):
those those who were really persistent, like just wanted to
commiserate with me, and you know who you are, you know,
they just wanted me to be miserable, and I wasn't miserable.
I felt like freer and better than I had ever
felt in my life. And what you learn from failure,
you know, it's like, not necessarily do you learn a
lesson particularly, but you learn that you have what you need.
(25:40):
If you're a smart person and you're committed to something
and you love working, and you love excellence and you
love quality, then you have what you need. Also if
you have a dog that you love and a husband
that you loved. You know, it's like all of that stuff,
that's what you learn, not necessarily how to go forward
in a more kind of though of course, you learn that.
(26:03):
What you learn is that at the core, everybody is
going to be okay, and failure is something that is constant.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
It's every day, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
So let's talk for a minute, because I don't know
why I talk to women this way, because I don't
talk to men about this, but it's because they don't
need to express this part of it. And I talked
to homosexuals about this, and I talked to queer people
about this. Talk to me about like being a woman
in that industry for a second, Is there anything like
that's not extremely general that you could point out about
(26:37):
it or something.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I thought that being being a woman for me was
less of an issue than being a mom.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Being a mom, you had.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
To constantly convince people that, like you were still able
to get on a plane and go cover a story
and don't worry, we have a nanny. My kids will
be fine, and they have a dad and he will
watch them.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
People would genuinely say like, oh my god, So like
who's watching your kids?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I'm like, well, the fuck.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Is watching your kids? Dude with five kids? Like ro
what are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So so that got annoying. So I think I ended
up making a lot of jokes about it. I remember
once I got a call actually during the tsunami in
two thousand and four in Southeast Asia. They wanted to
send me to Thailand, but I had just had twin
boys and they were like, so they kind of called
to say how they weren't gonna send me. Hey, we
know you're a new mom you're a new mommy, and
(27:30):
I'm sure you're home and so and I said to
them like, oh my god, I now have four kids
under four. Put me on a plane to Thailand. That
sounds amazing actually right about now, you know. And and
I think I constantly would joke about like ha ha,
you know I have no money.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Uh huh, I've got four kids.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
I got to keep you. You know.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
My boss once came up to me at CNN when
I had my twins, where I was pregnant with twins,
and he said something like, listen, you don't need to
make any decisions about what you want to do when
you have your kids. And I was like, I can
tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to
work because I will have four children. I live in
an expensive city like that. And I remember thinking there
(28:12):
is not a soul in my husband's office who's taking
him aside and saying, so listen, bread, bread, you know what,
just you don't worry your pretty little head about what's
going to happen after the kids are born. You know,
if you don't want to work, it might be something
to think. No one was having that conversation with him
right at all. They were more like, so, you're not
really going to take any time right off with these kids, You're.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Going to be back here.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Well wait a minute, a few things.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
One.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I don't know if you saw Michelle Wolfe's amazing specials
on Netflix, because she talks about this and it's really
really hilarious. By the way, she's not a mother. But
the other thing I was going to say is that
Ra's chast she's that fantastic illustrator. And she was on
the podcast and she said one of the smartest things
I've ever heard. She said, you know, when you pick
your husband, pick somebody who will help you know, are
(29:01):
you married to a great guy that you I.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Am married to a great guy, and I think you know.
I mean, whenever he would have the kids, people literally
would come over and congratulate him. Oh my god, Brad,
look at you. Yeah, because he's not babysitting those children aren't. Actually,
it's not called babysitting when it's your own children, called
babysitting when it's somebody else's exactly. So, yeah, No, he's great,
(29:26):
and he's always been very sort of competent when it
came childcare. And he's a great cook, so he loves
to cook. I've never had any issues around how we
were going to divide things up. He was busy, I
was busy, and I think we both kind of did
the thing that we were interested in doing. Like I
was more than happy to do cleaning and garbage gathering.
The guys of the dump love him, so he loves
(29:47):
to go to the dump and hang out with the dudes.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
At the dumb That is crazy.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
There was a very short probably a month where he
was so busy in traveling that I had to go
to the dump and the guys for all, like, is
everything okay with your marriage? He likes to cook. I
don't like to cook. I love to do laundry, you know.
So I think we were able to just say, like,
let's just divide it up into what we want to do,
(30:12):
and then every so often somebody's going to have to
take on more because the other person's just really swamp.
So I think he just was sane and also very
ambitious for me, maybe was most helpful. And I think
somebody being ambitious for you, they wanted to see where
you could go. They were rooting for you all the
way that that's been really wonderful. I really have felt
(30:34):
very lucky that my husband has always been somebody who
just is like, you know, I think if someone said, hey,
your wife's going to make more money than you, he'd
just be.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Like, WHOA, wow, that's great, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Do you have like a great agent or a manager,
or somebody that you work with on your team that
you adore as well?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I work with Courtney Catzel.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
They're now CIA, but they were ICM and she's fantastic,
and she was the first young woman who I've ever
worked with, and it's been great because I think often
for someone like me, who if you've anchored a cable
show or a network show, everybody wants to have you
do the same thing you used to do this.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Hey, listen, we now have this open from two to four. Oh,
we don't want to do that. Well over here, there's
eleven to twelve. Oh there's this block over here.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
And I think she just really was very good at saying,
you know, maybe you want to do documentaries. Maybe you
could create a business and sell series and specials and
still anchor some stuff and do this and do that.
But I think for a lot of people when I
would say, you know, I think I want to run
a production company, they would just look at me, like,
you know, but what we have over here is such
(31:47):
and such from twelve to two. That's what you do.
So she could see it, where a lot of other people,
I think just couldn't, you know, couldn't quite get it.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I don't know how you do it, because when I
have to leave my dogs yeh, by the way, I'm
not kidding. And it's never a rational kind of a fear.
It's never a rational anxiety that you feel. It's just
the emotional anxiety of leaving these beings that rely so
much upon you right for any length of time. I mean,
(32:16):
do you ever regret it? I'm sorry to go back
to this, but I would like a good question because
I feel like, is there ever a moment when you
regretted not going to the tsunami? Did you go like,
oh shit, if I wasn't lying here with these twins,
like you know, I'm serious, Like, well.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
They sent me.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I got to go to the tsunami, so I didn't
regret that. But you know, I never regretted.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I didn't partly just I don't do a lot of like,
you know, living and regret is sort of a little
bit of how I'm made up.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
But I remember my daughter. I went to school in
New York City. She's twenty three now.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
She's still mad that I didn't go to fourth grade
graduation because here in New York City people graduate at
the end of every and I'm like, what, what you're
gonna We assumed, with all the money I'm spending on
your education, you are going to do just fine and
get through to graduation. But she was mad about it,
and so the next year I made sure I went
to graduation. I never regretted whatever I was doing as
(33:13):
a parent. I never regretted being in the field. I
love my work, and I think partly because my spouse
was very supportive. I just think everybody knew, like, mom
loves this job. Mom has a cool job, and she
loves her job. I remember when I was trying to
get to go to Haiti for the earthquake, and I
was on the phone trying to get people, somebody to
send me to Haiti, and my daughter was pretty young
(33:35):
back then, so she's probably must have been five or six,
and she's like somebody better send Mommy to Haiti. She's
so I think that they both understood, like everybody's much
happier if.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Mom gets to go on her stories.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
And also like I did miss some things that they did,
and we tried to come up with ways in which
to stay engaged. I'm really close to all of my kids,
and I know people who stayed home and have some
tense relationship with their kids.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So I don't think the formula.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I don't think the formula is, you know, time with
them equals equals right.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
There isn't one answer for that. There really isn't.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
But you know, we were also lucky.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I thank god, I have one child who's got very
severe hearing issues, but outside of that, he's always been healthy.
And you know, we didn't have any childhood illness, thank goodness.
You know, we were pretty able to kind of make
it work, and we had good help. I had a
couple of bad sitters, but once I kind of cleared
that out, I ended up having pretty good people who
stayed for years and years and years when the kids
(34:32):
were little. And you know, so all those things are
very lucky, and if they if it goes wrong, then
you find yourself with a bad sitter and having to travel.
I had a sitter once who ended up. You know,
someone told me that she was hitting my daughter, one
of my daughters.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
No, wow, Jesus, Well that'll make you feel anxious.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Well, now, just to continue this conversation about being a
woman in your industry and a woman with a great
deal of integrity. I remember a long time ago, I
did this thing with Cindy Crawford. Remember George Magazine. It
was a JFK junior is magazine that he ran, and
he hired me and Cindy and we sat in his
(35:13):
office and he clicked these slides for us and there
was this kind of crazy mandate for politicians about what
they should and shouldn't wear, like don't wear a dangling earring,
don't wear too much eyeliner, you know, whatever it was.
It was a bunch of stuff and it was shocking,
and we commented on it and he published.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
It as a story. Do you have a dress code?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Like do you have stuff that you should wear and
shouldn't wear? And do you have a glam squad? Do
you have a stylist?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
So usually you get a stylist for your show because
the show has kind of a dress code, so we do.
We just started the ninth season of Matter of Fact,
which is a show about public policy. It's a syndicated show,
and so that show has a stylist, and we are
just moved into a new studio and so we actually
had to kind of rethink what we're doing and what
we're wearing because now it's full body. I mean, part
(36:00):
of what I was wearing was my I was in
my bedroom during the pandemic shooting the show, so I
only had to wear it like mattered from the waist up.
So you know, I think we all sit around and say,
you know, what is the show about, what makes sense
for me, what makes sense for the audience, what makes
sense for the stories? And then of course when you're
in the field, over time, thank god, you just get
(36:22):
better at figuring out like that buttoned down Oxfordy type
shirt that you're wearing as you walk through a disaster zone.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
You know, you figure out like this I can wear.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And you've all seen people who are inappropriately dressed on
a story, but there was never like creezy or they
have you know, fake eyelashes and you're like, well, you're
covering a disaster, this is not okay.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
I guess so, except there's a funny thing about working
for networks, right, Like Deborah Messing once told me that
when she first started appearing in Willn Gray, someone said,
you know what, you have to wear a padded bra
because your boobies are too small, you know. And I
just wonder if you ever came across any of that
kind of weird funny things.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
There's less pressure like at the network. No one would
say for me, at least, no one would ever say
something like that. In local news, they did have a
very big hand back then when I was there, and
you couldn't cut your hair without permission, you couldn't rise
without permission.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
If you gained weight, it made people uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So I knew people who had those kinds of things
in their contract, but I never saw that in network news.
I had a boss once who told me when I
was pregnant, I was always a very big, old pregnant lady.
I just gained a lot of weight and he said
I was making him uncomfortable. And I was like, you
want to talk about uncomfortable, let me tell you about
(37:39):
being uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
That is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Well, I'm sure there were things about how men dressed too,
but it was simple. It was like, don't wear double
breasted suits, you know. And I often wonder if David
Muir gets notes like could you cut your hair a
little bit, please shave or something, or I'm guessing he
does get those notes. And I'm also guessing that men
have stylists as well.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, most networks will do that.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Maybe the gap is closing a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
I think that's true. I think most most men do
at the network level.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
So now do you notice something about the way people
present themselves? Now that's different than say Walter Cronkite or
Dan Rather or you know, Diane Sawyer or something. You know,
It's like they were like quote unquote impartial. They couldn't say,
oh my god, can you believe like what Donald Trump
(38:32):
is saying today, you know, whereas like now I can
tell when you talk how you feel about a certain thing.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, I think the thing I find frustrating is opinion
right where people instead of saying okay, where they just
want to talk only about their own point of view,
And I'm like, I don't I don't care about your
point of view. I want to hear from an expert,
an expert I agree with, even maybe an expert I
don't agree with. But I'm interested in others people's point
of view, and if I'm giving my own opinion, it's
(39:02):
here's how I feel about it, and let me tell
you why I'm informed that way. So, for example, when
you have a guest Don who is against interracial marriage,
and often when I was at CNN, we would be
reporting on that. I'm not gonna pretend as a kid
who's a product of an interracial marriage, like, oh yeah,
I have no thoughts on this, and that would just
(39:23):
be that's just would be disingenuous, right think you you know.
On the other hand, I'm not an expert outside of
my own personal experience, so the whole segment is not
going to be about my take on it.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I'm interested in their take.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
But I feel like you have to explain to people
your point of view if you have a strong one
or some kind of connection. That said, I do think
in the Walter Cronkite days, as much as they were objective,
remember they left a whole bunch of communities just out
right objective, and yet they're like, we don't believe these people.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
Matter so right.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
There, we got their point.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Of view by who they just left out right like
they were not going to bother with certain communities, they
were not going to hire certain people, and they did
not think certain issues were worthy of talking about.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
They didn't call it their bias.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
They were completely objective, and yet there was tons of bias.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Darling, can you talk for a minute about where the
phrase fake news is concerned, because you know, before twenty sixteen,
if somebody reported on an insurrection taking place on the
White House, they wouldn't refer to it as politicizing the
news and questioning its veracity because we have the footage,
we have the story, we know it happens. So can
(40:49):
you address that a little bit as an insider, you know,
a person who understands what the hell.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
Is going on.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
So I think fake news kind of the definition is
just news you don't agree with, right. Some people do
it jokingly, Oh that's fake news, and some people are
very serious. But really it's news that doesn't reflect your
own personal opinion. It cannot be real because you disagree.
Part of the challenge has been that Cable specifically, but
news organizations across the board. The news is only political
(41:19):
now right. I mean, back in the day, I spent
so little time talking to people at the White House.
You'd say, Jane's at the White House, Jane. They say,
that's right, soll it ad. The President's going to do
blah bla blah blah, and you'd say, Jane Jones at
the White House for us, Thank you, Jane, and you'd
move on to all the other stories. And then suddenly
we started covering really politics as kind of the main story.
(41:41):
The country itself also at the same time becoming more
and more partisan, and more and more divided, and more
and more political, and then people started picking and choosing
because every story became political. Part of the challenge is
where I think news bears some responsibility. You know, they say,
if you only have a hammer, everything's in right. And
I think if if your whole point is to really
(42:04):
just cover the politics of something, as opposed to going
into communities and just reporting, traveling, doing stories. I do
a public policy show, we do so little of reporting
on politics. I do not let people on the air
to argue. And also, one thing the news has really
messed up is that when you put people against each other, Right,
(42:25):
this person on the left and this person on the right.
They fight in real life, it's usually not the way
actual organizations ran. I mean, imagine if in your business
you're like, I'm going to take my most far person
over here, put them against this person who has a
completely I'm gonna let them battle it out, you'd say, no, no, no.
The person I want to elevate is the guy in
(42:45):
my office or the woman in my office, who has consensus,
who brings people together, who's interested in hearing people's suff of.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Course, but can you please take into account like what
Twitter has done to the news, what social media you're
done to the news.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Absolutely, the news is competing with Twitter. They're competing with
social media. That means your stuff has to be more
salacious and things that were just I can't believe they're
covering that story became I don't believe this story. I
remember when CNN had a breaking news Britney Spears cut
her hair and we're like, this is so embarrassing, Like
what this breaking news? Because we're CNN. Are we reporting
(43:24):
on this story like it's a story?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Today? I think it's gone further.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
But news is trying to compete with social media, right people,
My daughters, my sons. They don't watch the news. I
wish I could tell you they did, but they don't.
They get snippets of the news through TikTok, through x now,
through Instagram. They look up whatever they're interested in. They
read the paper if it's sitting there on the table,
(43:49):
but they don't run to the couch and sit down.
My dad used to sit down and say, shush, everybody,
make Neil lair news hours on and God, God save you,
God save you if you were like made noise during
the McNeil Larra news hour. But now, I mean news
to some degree has become entertainment because they're trying to
compete every time the news says like here's a heartwarming
(44:13):
story from Instagram, this little kid, you know, funny wacky video,
because they're trying to grab those eyeballs and migrate them over.
But I think most of the people who are on
social media have already seen it.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Do you think we're doomed a little bit?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Darling?
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Do you think what do you think is going to happen? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Right, Like, don't you think it's corroded to such an
extent now by social media? It's kind of like yell,
people just go, oh, I hate that restaurant. Meantime, they're
talking about a really good restaurant, and I don't know
why they're hating on it so much, just because they
have nothing better to do with something, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
It starts becoming a little irrelevant, and I think that
is a real risk. But you know, there's a whole
generation of people, I think, who are going to come
up with a new strategy because right now, news on
the Internet is literally just migrated from the evening news.
Right every time you see it, it's a boy and
a girl and.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
They're sitting next to each other and they're like, oh,
that's right, bob. You know they they had this chit chat.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
They haven't figured out like, all right, but what is
news delivery on the internet in a way that people
will actually say, oh, I like this. We really haven't
figured that out yet. I think a lot of what
people want to see is traveling, going places, bringing information.
It's why documentaries, I think do so well. People are
interested in understanding context. Yeah, the little show that we do,
(45:38):
I'm telling you does so well. And it's we don't
allow politicians on, we don't allow debates.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
We literally send.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Crews, and we just say we are here to serve
the viewer, and so I'm here to help them under
understand an issue.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
So here's an ishow. We're going to dig.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Into it, and we're going to help you walk away smarter.
You're going to get it. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
You might be onto something, darl You might be onto
something if someone approached the news as though they were
cutting a documentary. But of course then you have the
editor who feels a certain way and who feels that
you know that the insurrection was a lie, or that
the Holocaust was a lie, or that slavery was a lie.
I just wonder if there's a way around any of
that anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
It's a scary time.
Speaker 4 (46:20):
Is there an agency?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
It's a scary time, Listen. I think that we're in
the middle of a very big shift because what exists
is not working. And I think you have you know,
the viewership of these shows is dropping. And I remember
years ago, you know, a lot of these news shows
were the most important twenty two minutes of the day.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
You wake up and you had to watch what was happening,
and that's.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Just not the case today, Darling, Do you have conversations
with people about what you watched this morning. You didn't
because you've seen it already. If you missed it, it's
already on Instagram. You can read the transcript on the internet.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
You missed nothing.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
And so I do think it's a very scary time
for the end Street for sure.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Have you altered your reality based on followship or something
like do you make your show fun and short or something,
because you know that that's what gets people's attention.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Me on social media is very different than my show
on social media, they just don't overlap that much. My
boss was saying this the other day. She's like, our
viewers are on TV. We're a syndicated show. We're a
network of affiliates people who watch us. So we actually
spend a lot of time traveling to Kansas City, Nevada,
at West Palm Beach, Houston where we have stations and
we go meet with people and we say, what's your
(47:37):
story here? Because one thing people hate is having someone
report on stories in their hometown and get it wrong.
Whenever a poor reporter had to come to Long Island
and they hadn't been there and they're like hop poggy
and missing wog. I mean, they couldn't pronounce anything, you know,
and you just knew, like this person doesn't know anything
about this neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
They're just faking it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
And I do think that we try to make sure
that we're going to talk about, you know, why are
rural hospitals in Nebraska closing and what's the implication of
that around the country. Like that's what we do, and
for me, it's just much more interesting. That's just not
on social media. It's not what's happening.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Well, you know what. My final question for you, it's
about your obituary. What's the headline say and what is
it about.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I've actually thought about this so much because people often
ask you about your legacy, and I really think my obituary,
my obituary would say something like solidad O'Brien, dedicated mom,
devoted wife and really committed member of her community, drop
dead yesterday. She was known for doing X, Y and
(48:44):
Z and journalism. But like I think, like those are
the things, right, don't you want to be like a
good person. I want people to say, like, oh my god,
my mom died and she was amazing.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
I love I love people who love their parents.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
I love My parents passed away a couple of years ago,
and I just I miss them so much, and they
were such good people and you know, you couldn't There's
nothing you'd find on Google about them. They were just
great people and I really miss so and I felt
very lucky to have them. So I hope I'm that
this is incredible. I mean, what an inspiration to hear
that from you. I would never have guessed that, never, yes,
(49:19):
especially not after this talk that we've had, that you
would value those personal things more than oh, yeah, than
you would like. You know, Solodet O'Brien, huge star on television,
huge journalist, with incredible integrity, and no, none of that.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
You don't care. You just want to be a good person.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
That's great, No, I mean, you know, you win.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
I like winning awards, But isn't it much nicer when
you have a kid who like turns out well, or
who takes your advice, or who just is a nice
person and who loves us. My kids are all getting
into that twenties age and it's really nice.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
It's really nice, incredible, incredible, very inspiring answer, Darling. Okay, well,
what do you want to promote on this podcast?
Speaker 1 (50:01):
I'm going to promote matter of Fact because we were
talking about it, and I think it's a really good
option for people who are trying to get news. That's
they're going to walk away learning more and understanding more.
Our goal is to really serve the audience and help
people understand issues. It's a syndicated show in the ninety
five percent of the country, so you can find us
online just by googling us matter of Fact dot tv.
(50:23):
We'll tell you where we are in your matter of effect.
Neck of the Woods matter of Fact with Solidad O'Brien.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
I can't wait. Thank you, Thank you so much, so
Lad you're the best.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Nice
to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
That was such a fascinating talk because I know Soldat
O'Brien a little bit, and I know that she's a planner.
One of her famous quotes is like, you know, one
way to come across, you know, as someone smart, is
to be more prepared than anyone else in the room.
And when you consider all of that, and you consider that,
(51:01):
you know, she and her entire family went to Harvard, right,
and then the whole way that she sort of fell
into journalism fell into the career that she has now
and how incredibly far that has taken her, as you know,
both a news anchor and a media personality. It's just
so inspiring that she ended the whole thing by talking
(51:25):
about what would be in her obituary, you know, like, oh,
she was a great mom and a great wife, like
all of that is always such a surprise to me
coming from such incredibly erudite and accomplished personalities. And it
was very, very inspiring to me personally that she cares
(51:45):
more about being a good person and leaving the legacy
of a good person behind as opposed to some kind
of like giant, giant giant superstar who took over the world.
I just think that's so inspiring, especially when you consider
what we're all going through right now. You know, it's
(52:06):
just inspiring when someone says they want to be remembered
for being a good person. Well, I will always remember
Sola Dad O'Brien for being a good person.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Darlings.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favorite and
tell someone, Tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin,
tell everyone you know.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
Okay, and be sure to rate the show. I love
rating stuff.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
Go on and rate and review the show on Apple
Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes
such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second,
so go on and do it. And if you want
more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow
the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast
(52:58):
And by the way, check me out on Instagram and
TikTok at.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
I Am Isaac Musrahi.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
This is Isaac Misrahi, thank you, I love you, and
I never thought I'd say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello
Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I
AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by Me
Isaac Msrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The
(53:28):
senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. Vis Executive
produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Caarra Welker, and Nathan
Klokey at Imagine Audio, Production management from Katie Hodges, Sound
design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed by
Ben Wilson. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah
(53:49):
katanak At I Am entertainment,
Being a woman for me, was less of an issue
than being a mom. Being a mom, you had to
constantly convince people that, like you were still able to
get on a plane and go cover a story and
don't worry, we have a nanny. My kids will be fine,
and they have a dad and.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
He will watch them.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
You know, people would genuinely say like, oh my god,
so like who's watching your kids? I'm like, who's watching
your kids? Dude with five kids? Like, ron are you
talking about?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Msrahi and
in this episode, I talked to award winning journalist, documentarian,
and author Solidad O'Brien.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hello, Isaac, it's Solidad O'Brien. Looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I met Solidad O'Brien a really really long time ago,
and I've always been such a big fan of hers
because not only does she give us the news, not
only does she make these incredible documentaries and write these
incredible books, but she's also kind of fun. You know,
She's kind of fun to watch and funny, and I
want to talk to her about like this balance between
(01:16):
what is fun and what is considered appropriate for the
media these days.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
And how it's changed. Anyway, I'm excited. Let's get going solely.
Dad O'Brien, Hello, Hello, are ye? Well? You know, I mean,
I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I think the last time I saw you was in
California on the set of Celebrity Jeopardy.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
What was that like ten years ago?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Maybe more?
Speaker 4 (01:47):
No, I think it was a long time ago.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
It was.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
It was Yeah, that's hard that game, by the way,
not the questions, although I was very strong in the
Jennifer Aniston category.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I would just like to remind.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
My Harvard education went to waste because I'm like, the
buzzer is really sticky.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I don't know who it was that what at the
time that we were on together, but it wasn't you,
and it wasn't me. And I always think it's Michael
McKean because he kept winning because he had a real
knack with the buzzer and you know, like eighty five
or ninety percent of those things we all know. Okay,
you don't have to be a Harvard graduate. They sort
of dumb it down a little bit for celebrities, right God,
thank God, Oh my God. All right, So you know
(02:29):
what I want to talk to you eventually, like where
you started, where you ended up, all that. We're going
to go over that, but first I want to talk
for a minute about this idea of impartiality, right, Like,
because you are a journalist, right, you see yourself as
a journalist. You're an author, you're a personality, or a
(02:51):
lot of things. But I think you started and like
the thrust of what you do has a lot to
do with journalism, is that right?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Mostly I'd say, ah, my are based on journalism, and
there are lots of docs that are not, But I
would say most of my documentaries and our series are
kind of grounded in journalism. And when I'm asked to
join a project, it's usually to kind of add the
value of journalism into the project.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Okay, So as a journalist, I think you're behooved of something,
you must kind of remain impartial, Is.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
That right or what?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, here's the challenge I have with that.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And I started having these conversations actually when we started
reporting on policing in inner city communities, right, And because
sometimes impartiality means you just agree with your bosses who
are usually like older, middle aged white men, right, so
(03:49):
you so often you know, they would say things like
here's their take on policing, and so you know that's
not particularly impartial, but it's like, this is what we
all we believe this police come into a neighborhood and
they're there to help. And I will promise you that
many people of color in communities where police have more
(04:09):
challenging relationships, they don't feel that way, right, Their reality
is actually.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Well in.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And so so I think that the challenge becomes, are
we talking about being impartial or are we actually saying
we agree with this common theory of the people who
run newsrooms who are mostly older white men. And I
think that that is the challenge.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So, for example, when you go and say, actually police
in some of these communities by working on a documentary
and the police are doing wheelies in the middle because
they're trying to kind of scare the people in East
New York, I'm not going to say that the police
are you know this line the police are always there
to protect people.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
That's just objectively not true. And so I think the challenge.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Becomes the people say, well, you know, journalists shouldn't have opinions,
and I think people who genuinely don't have an opinion
on something are probably pretty under educated.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I mean, really you don't have an opinion.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think the key is to make sure that you
were making sure that you're reporting really looks deeply into
an issue, and you use your point of view to
either push back on someone or really challenge them. And sometimes,
I mean I believe in mid of an interview and
someone will say something and they make me rethink. So
for example, I was having breakfast with a guy I
know pretty well, and he said, I was boarding a
(05:32):
Delta flight and there was a picture of two men
you know those ads they do, like on the way
down on the jet bridge, And one of the pictures
was a picture of two guys, right, and they were
kind of like snuggling because they were on a plane together.
And he's like, I just felt that was inappropriate for
my five.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Year old Ah wow, right.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I'm lad.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And so he said to me, am I wrong? And
I was like, well, all I can do is tell
you how I think about this issue. So in my
point of view, you are wrong because you're three to
five year old. His sexuality has nothing to do with
looking at pictures going down.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
The Delta jet bridge.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Right, So I think what you want to bring is
not let me dictate to you here's how I feel,
but let me inform you with my experience and my
point of view. But I'm not going to pretend like
I don't have a thought on this topic. That would
be dishonest. And I think when journalists pretend they don't
understand something, they pretend they don't have a point of view.
(06:28):
That's just not accurate. That's just not true. If your
dad's a cop, you have a different point of view.
I'm reporting on policing. And by the way, I think
it's great to have someone say, you know, my dad
was a cop.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So when I hear these stories.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
They're really upsetting to me because I find it so
foreign to how my dad worked.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Right, That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It adds value, and the person can go out and
really do good reporting and talk to you about their
background and what they bring to the conversation, versus saying
I have no point of view.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
That's an I do think what you're saying is true,
and it is right, and it is somewhat modern because
if you spoke to like some other news anchor like
fifteen years ago or twenty years ago, they would say,
I have to say stuff with a straight face, and
(07:17):
I know what you're doing. You're going like, yeah, the
higher ups write the copy, they edit the copy, all
of that. But in for instance, politics, right, like, you're
not supposed to tip your hand, you're not supposed to
say you're a Republican or a Democrat. I think that's
gone for.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Good, you know, Yeah, I think that's true. Although I
think what's more interesting because I just don't care if
someone's a Republican or a Democrat. I'm much more interested
on do they call the person who they're interviewing out
as a bullshitter and a liar, whether they're a Republican
they're talking to or a Democrat, Like, well, I don't
care how they vote.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
It literally makes no difference to me.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
I do. I don't.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I have to say I care how they vote, you know,
because ultimately it really hurts our society if they vote
one way or the other, you know. So that's a
conversation that we can have, and I think it's going
to come organically. Let's talk about you, Okay. First of all,
my favorite topic. You look so beautiful in that sweater today,
I must say, that's a beautiful color.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Darling. Where are you from?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I grew up in Smithtown, Long Island, New York, And
in fact I was sent by NBC News in must
have been early nineties to Juilliard to work on my
accent and to lose, of course, very.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
We all did.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I went to performing our high school, and they taught
us not to sound like we were from Long Island.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
To Brooklyn exactly exactly. So I grew up in Long Island.
My parents, however, were both foreigners. My mom was from Cuba.
She was she passed away a couple of years ago
Afro Cuban. And my dad was white and from Australia.
And they met in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins, and then
eventually my dad became a professor and at Sunny Stonybrook.
So we moved near Stonybrook, Long Island, New York.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
And why did you go to Harvard? Like what you
just earlier in the podcast you said you went to Harvard.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Every Harvard person works that in in some conversation, you know,
I mean, you know at my time at Harvard.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
No, But I mean, what what propelled you? Were? You?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Extremely smart did you get great grades? Did you work
really hard as a student? Was are you like, you know,
like Rory Gilmore, was that like the thing you always
wanted to do was go to Harvard and then you
went to Yale.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I a little bit of all of the above, although
I didn't necessarily always going to go to Harvard, but
my older sister went, and then I had an older
brother who went, and then I had.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Another older sister who went, So I was very familiar with.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Ooh, amazing, were really smart people.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
They were kind of smart.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Also, my parents were very strict, so we just did
nothing but like sit around and study, and we were
pretty smart and we were pretty good students, and we
were not allowed to do a whole lot because my
parents were foreigners and they had the immigrant mentality around
education and so so yeah, but it's much easier, and
it's much I think it demystifies the process when your
(10:03):
sisters go, right, because you're.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Like, oh, my gosh, they're not they're not so smart.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But they can also tell you, like which cafeterias to
go to, how to dress, you know, not to get
engaged with certain kind of people on campus, et cetera.
But Darling you know, this is a question I ask
a lot on this podcast, and I love the answers
I get from people. Do you think that your education
(10:30):
was a really good kind of preparation for you?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
My into the wordcation was helpful, and in my business,
Harvard is a thing that helps equalize you. So you're
talking to a senator and you say, oh, gosh, I
was in Strauss Hall too, and they suddenly actually like
treat you better. And I think, especially if you're a
woman and a woman of color, there is actually a
(10:56):
study that says for people of color, for women of color, specifically,
where you go to college really matters. And I don't
think it's because, oh, my goodness, the education is so
far better. I think you can get a great education
in a whole lot of places. I do think that
there's a sense of oh, oh.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
You went to Harvard.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Let me you know, however I might have thought about
you or whatever, maybe bias someone had.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
They that it can have an impact on that.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
So it certainly helped on that front, especially when I
was interviewing people or I was relatively young as a
producer at NBC, and I felt like it helped equalize.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Me a little bit.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Right, of course, but you'd learn nothing.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
You know, at Harvard they like to say you learn
how to think, which means you don't learn any actual
practical things at all.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
No, nothing, And I remember, you know, Parsons was a
pretty good preparation for design, but it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I mean, the minute you get out into the.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Real world, you learn what the hell is going on
and how to get places right and how to do things,
how to get things accomplished. But so take me back,
because you finished Harvard, I'm assuming, right, and then you
did what how did you get started in your career path?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I left Harvard before I graduated and started working at
a TV station. I was I was pre med actually,
and and I decided not to go, which was a
lot of you know, my sister is a doctor, my
sister in law's a doctor, my brother in law's a doctor,
My brother is a doctor. And I really had this
you know, Long Island, right. The doctors were the wealthy
(12:23):
people in town. The doctors were, you know, on the scale,
the higher archy.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Yes, so I was like that.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Also also they can write prescriptions, which is always a
good point.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
So I wanted to be a doctor. And then you know,
I'm taking organic chemistry with my sister. She was sort
of had this conversation around, this is not something you
should do. So I didn't well, only because I wasn't
particularly passionate about it. And I think she sort of
pointed out to me, like, you know, if you're not passionate,
then it's something you shouldn't do.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You know, like she said to me, you're memorizing stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And back then, before I had kids, I had a
good memory, and I could memorize it and then regurgitate
it on a test. And she's like, you're just clearly
not passionate about it. And she was she's a surgeon
now and she's a great doctor. So I actually he
was right.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
You got a job at a TV station rare in Boston.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So right behind Boston the Harvard Playing Fields was a
station called WBZTV. It was an NBC station. It's now
a CBS station. And I got a job as first
as an intern and then as a production assistant. So
that was my first actual paying job, making eight dollars
a year.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Can you imagine forget you never forget those numbers.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Oh my gosh, go crazy.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I forgot what I got paid. But I'll never forget that.
My first apartment was four hundred and forty dollars a month. Yeah,
and so you started there and was that because you
felt like it was the right field for you to
be going into.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I didn't know it when I was an intern at first,
but then I went down to visit the newsroom because
I wasn't an intern in the newsroom, and I saw
people running around like trying to make air, and I thought,
oh my god, this is amazing. I mean, it's one
of the reasons I really like internships, because you'll tell people, well,
I want to work with people, and I'm a people person,
you know. But there's ten zillion versions of what that means.
(14:08):
And so I realize that I love a job that
is over. Like you do a show and you're done.
It could have been a great show, it could have
been a horrific show, but like it's done, and then
you get to come back again tomorrow and start fresh.
I loved the idea of doing deep research. I loved
the idea of being under pressure every day and having
to deliver, Like those were these things that I wouldn't
(14:28):
have known if I hadn't been in a newsroom. You know,
being a PA, as you know is I'm sure there's
an equivalent in fashion production, right, somebody who gets coffee
and they they run the errands, right, they do everything,
and sometimes they get to go on an important, you know, errand,
but usually it's something you know, running for us, running scripts,
this and that. And I was good at all that,
(14:50):
and I thought it was a great opportunity. I was
good at making myself useful. When I talk to young people,
I'm always telling them, like, you get your foot in,
and then you have to figure out how to be
valuable so that you don't just stay in that job
that people say, oh, she's really useful and helpful on this,
we should move her.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
So what was the first thing that occurred to you
that said, you know, I'm going to go here, because
I feel like if I were a journalist, I mean,
can you finish that thought?
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, I would say at the very beginning, one of
the things we covered was a Boston marathon.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So I'm a PA in Boston. I moved up.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I became an AP but when I really was starting
at the beginning, and you could volunteer back in the
day and work for free on a Saturday, So there
are no laws against it, and so I did, and
so I and my thinking was, if I want to
be a journalist, I'm going to need to one have
something to talk about that I've done that's not getting
(15:42):
sandwiches and running scripts. And number two, they're going to
let me be a producer on the Boston Marathon, which is,
you know, doesn't really mean a thing. I mean, producer
can mean a million things. And so I became a producer,
which made my resume bigger and better even and then
the printer broke actually, and so we had no printer,
and so I ended up writing the entire show in
(16:04):
a shark with another mouth. You know, but you sit
in an interview for your next job, right, and you're
like a funny story. When I was producing the Boston Marathon,
the printers died.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
We couldn't run scripts.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
So I wrote the show, and you know, and so
it gives you stories, it gives you something.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
New culture exact culture.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Exactly, and so that I sort of figured out early.
And that meant when I was next interviewing for a
job as a reporter, I was a PA and an
associate producer and a producer in Boston. No, no, I
left to take a producer job at NBC News. I
went to the network, and when I went there, I
knew that I wanted more responsibility and that I would
be allowed to start producing. And I know it's because
(16:47):
I told people like I had been producing. I was
responsible for the Boston Marathon show that we were airing.
I don't know that I was thinking journalism as much
as a job and working on a story probably be
more of the way I would put it.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Right, So it wasn't like a plan for you to
become this world famous kind of person, and you weren't
yearning to do anything.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
It was just you followed along the path. Am I
getting that right? I think?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I think that's right, And I was good at it, right,
So you're sort of like, oh, yeah, I'm actually pretty
I can get sandwiches and also start editing scripts.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I can do this and that. Oh I like doing this.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I had a woman who I was working for who
used to have me get her dry cleaning.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
People were so mad, You're not allowed.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
To get people's dry clean And I'm like, you know what,
this is a person who when I was looking for
an apartment in Boston, which, by the way, was so
expensive even back then, you know, and she would like
hook me up with a friend who had a basement
apart and for me to write. And I'm like, this
is the quid pro quota of knowing people, favors getting promoted,
getting you know, assistance, And so I think I kind
(17:49):
of learned that as well. But I wouldn't say there
was a strategic path. It was more of, huh, I'm
actually pretty good at this.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I got to figure out how to write scripts, I
got to figure out how to do live shot, I
got to figure out how to time out a show.
I got to figure out how to do this next thing.
But I'm pretty good at this, this and this.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
So when did you go?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
All Right, I'm not getting sandwiches anymore. That said, I've
had it, And when did you go? I think I
could be really good on air?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
You know, this is a terrible this is a terrible story.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Back then, it was the collapse of the Soviet Union, right,
So this was nineteen ninety one ish and I was
watching this anchor woman who was so mean to me,
and I remember thinking watching her do an interview about Russia,
of which was something or the Soviet Union that she
knew nothing about. And I remember thinking, well, shit, my
(18:40):
questions could be equally as stupid, Like anybody could do that,
Like she doesn't know a thing.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I remember, this is pre this is pre Google.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
If you didn't know and you didn't have an expert
on the phone, you could say, Professor Jones, tell me
what I should be asking during this live breaking news conference.
And I thought, well, she's she's really not smart. Anybody
could do that. I could do that. That's careful, but
that is literally what happened.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Wow, that's funny coming from like a Harvard graduate, you know,
like someone who isn't not smart, like you are extremely smart?
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I just had better questions. I mean I felt like
I have decent Soviet Union questions.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Did you have like a break or something? Is there
a scene from broadcast news like where you went, Like,
oh my god, this is who I am. I can't
believe it. I mean, what happened? How did you get there?
Speaker 4 (19:38):
You know?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I often tell people, young people.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I was at an event over the weekend in Vegas
and someone asked me my advice that I'm like, hard
work is often underappreciated. I don't really have like the
momentous event until much later in my career, because I
think the first decade was really just a slog coming
in early, staying late, helping people, doing it again, doing
another rewrite, telling somebody, hey, do you need me to
(20:02):
help you on this project?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
You know, just sucking it up. Now.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Once I got to CNN and I was covering Hurricane Katrina,
I think that coverage really helped define the work that
I would do and what kind of a reporter I was.
I think I sort of grew up on that. But
by then that was two thousand and five. I had
been at CNN for two years. You're already a star, darling.
You're a star by two thousand and five.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
Only in my own head, but no, I mean Celebrity
Jeopardy what like literally nineteen ninety something, So you were
already like a glamorous, fabulous star.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
You know, seriously, Yeah, but I don't think anybody would say, oh, solidad.
You know, she's the kind of reporter who does this,
like where you come into your own you know what
I'm saying, Like someone walks into a store and says,
I need Isaac mss Rahi because he makes this dress
and it's exactly what I'm thinking in my head versus like, oh,
I know him, he's a designer. Let me go over
(20:57):
here and look. And I think it became like I
stood for something and I think I figured out my
own I wonder if that happened to you, Like do
you figure out like, ah, this is who I am,
this is what I'm creating.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Darling.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
I'm still trying to figure that out, and I'm literally
strying to the Did you have, like any mentors in
your career.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Was there some like person who helped you?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Oh, my gosh, so many.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I had a great first boster name was Jean Blake
at WBZTV. She was the medical reporter and she was
a great mentor because she was so intense and she
was so smart, and she believed in quality so much
that you know, I started my career at the very
lowest levels, but with somebody who was like, precision is everything,
Being right is everything, never be sloppy. And it's very
(21:43):
easy to I think, enter the industry and if you're
around people are like, eh, here's how you fake it,
here's how you just get it done. It would be
it would be easy to kind of grow up in
a way that's a little bit sloppy, And instead I
felt like I learned at the foot of somebody who
was just obsessed with quality, and she also wanted to
do a lot of important stories. She was one of
(22:04):
the first reporters reporting on HIV AIDS. She was, and
she had to battle people in the newsroom who didn't
want to go on those stories.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
A cameraman.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I mean so like, she was just a hardcore at
every level in what she believed and what she did.
And you know, you look back and you think there
were plenty of perfectly good reporters who were not that right,
who you couldn't say, you know, stood for something. A
lot of people are like, hey, listen, I'm here for
a paycheck. I like my job, it's fun, I enjoy it.
(22:32):
But she was a really great first boss to have.
And then my next boss was her colleague at NBC News.
He was the medical reporter at NBC News, and same thing.
He was obsessed with quality, and we got to work
on a lot of interesting stories, and I think he
was very much a person who allowed me to go
out and just be in the field by myself and
do stuff, which I appreciated. So I was very lucky,
(22:54):
but you know, you learn. I think there's also people
who mentor you and you see bad behavior and you're like, oh, oh,
never do that.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I've met a woman who used to say all the time,
do you know who I am?
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Was?
Speaker 2 (23:06):
God, she's an acre woman. Do you know who I am?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
She telled me, And I was like, oh, God, if
I ever become an acre person, I will never do that.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
That's horrible.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
And what about whenever it was that you felt that
you were on a great career path, right, did you
have some kind of failure? Did you have some kind
of setback that you both remember and learn something from.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, I had a lot of setbacks, but not that early.
I think when I became a reporter at CNN and
started anchoring, you know, you ended up being on a
bigger platform. And I was doing a show I think
it was called American Morning maybe and it got canceled.
(23:50):
And the thing about being an anchor on a show,
a news show for CNN, I think it still happens
to this day is usually you read about it first
before someone tells you.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's not good.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, yeah, you know, and you realize at some point,
like everybody's been there. But so I think to have
something embarrassing happen, but to have it with everybody watching, like, oh.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
My god, did you see her on air today? She's
been fired?
Speaker 4 (24:14):
I was hard. God, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
You know, And so again I think you end up
learning about like what are the things that I believe
in and what are my values? Because for me, I
remember getting to say goodbye they fired me and my
co anchor, and they actually moved us into I got
to go to the doc unit, which ended up being
the greatest thing of my life. It actually made my
career as documentarian. It allowed me to begin my own
(24:39):
business at some point. So it it ended up being great,
But at the moment, it felt terrible and embarrassing, very embarrassing.
But I think, you know, you realize, like, okay, so
how do you want to handle this thing that's public
and awkward? And you know, who are you in how
you're going to handle this publicly?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
You know? It's funny.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
So the dad, because I had a very public failure
too in like nineteen ninety seven or whatever that was,
and I swear to you I didn't perceive it as
a failure. I swear like I kind of pulled the
trigger myself. I made the decision to close my doors.
But everybody was calling me and leaving me messages, and
(25:18):
those those who were really persistent, like just wanted to
commiserate with me, and you know who you are, you know,
they just wanted me to be miserable, and I wasn't miserable.
I felt like freer and better than I had ever
felt in my life. And what you learn from failure,
you know, it's like, not necessarily do you learn a
lesson particularly, but you learn that you have what you need.
(25:40):
If you're a smart person and you're committed to something
and you love working, and you love excellence and you
love quality, then you have what you need. Also if
you have a dog that you love and a husband
that you loved. You know, it's like all of that stuff,
that's what you learn, not necessarily how to go forward
in a more kind of though of course, you learn that.
(26:03):
What you learn is that at the core, everybody is
going to be okay, and failure is something that is constant.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
It's every day, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
So let's talk for a minute, because I don't know
why I talk to women this way, because I don't
talk to men about this, but it's because they don't
need to express this part of it. And I talked
to homosexuals about this, and I talked to queer people
about this. Talk to me about like being a woman
in that industry for a second, Is there anything like
that's not extremely general that you could point out about
(26:37):
it or something.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I thought that being being a woman for me was
less of an issue than being a mom.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Being a mom, you had.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
To constantly convince people that, like you were still able
to get on a plane and go cover a story
and don't worry, we have a nanny. My kids will
be fine, and they have a dad and he will
watch them.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
People would genuinely say like, oh my god, So like
who's watching your kids?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I'm like, well, the fuck.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Is watching your kids? Dude with five kids? Like ro
what are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So so that got annoying. So I think I ended
up making a lot of jokes about it. I remember
once I got a call actually during the tsunami in
two thousand and four in Southeast Asia. They wanted to
send me to Thailand, but I had just had twin
boys and they were like, so they kind of called
to say how they weren't gonna send me. Hey, we
know you're a new mom you're a new mommy, and
(27:30):
I'm sure you're home and so and I said to
them like, oh my god, I now have four kids
under four. Put me on a plane to Thailand. That
sounds amazing actually right about now, you know. And and
I think I constantly would joke about like ha ha,
you know I have no money.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Uh huh, I've got four kids.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
I got to keep you. You know.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
My boss once came up to me at CNN when
I had my twins, where I was pregnant with twins,
and he said something like, listen, you don't need to
make any decisions about what you want to do when
you have your kids. And I was like, I can
tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to
work because I will have four children. I live in
an expensive city like that. And I remember thinking there
(28:12):
is not a soul in my husband's office who's taking
him aside and saying, so listen, bread, bread, you know what,
just you don't worry your pretty little head about what's
going to happen after the kids are born. You know,
if you don't want to work, it might be something
to think. No one was having that conversation with him
right at all. They were more like, so, you're not
really going to take any time right off with these kids, You're.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Going to be back here.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Well wait a minute, a few things.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
One.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I don't know if you saw Michelle Wolfe's amazing specials
on Netflix, because she talks about this and it's really
really hilarious. By the way, she's not a mother. But
the other thing I was going to say is that
Ra's chast she's that fantastic illustrator. And she was on
the podcast and she said one of the smartest things
I've ever heard. She said, you know, when you pick
your husband, pick somebody who will help you know, are
(29:01):
you married to a great guy that you I.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Am married to a great guy, and I think you know.
I mean, whenever he would have the kids, people literally
would come over and congratulate him. Oh my god, Brad,
look at you. Yeah, because he's not babysitting those children aren't. Actually,
it's not called babysitting when it's your own children, called
babysitting when it's somebody else's exactly. So, yeah, No, he's great,
(29:26):
and he's always been very sort of competent when it
came childcare. And he's a great cook, so he loves
to cook. I've never had any issues around how we
were going to divide things up. He was busy, I
was busy, and I think we both kind of did
the thing that we were interested in doing. Like I
was more than happy to do cleaning and garbage gathering.
The guys of the dump love him, so he loves
(29:47):
to go to the dump and hang out with the dudes.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
At the dumb That is crazy.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
There was a very short probably a month where he
was so busy in traveling that I had to go
to the dump and the guys for all, like, is
everything okay with your marriage? He likes to cook. I
don't like to cook. I love to do laundry, you know.
So I think we were able to just say, like,
let's just divide it up into what we want to do,
(30:12):
and then every so often somebody's going to have to
take on more because the other person's just really swamp.
So I think he just was sane and also very
ambitious for me, maybe was most helpful. And I think
somebody being ambitious for you, they wanted to see where
you could go. They were rooting for you all the
way that that's been really wonderful. I really have felt
(30:34):
very lucky that my husband has always been somebody who
just is like, you know, I think if someone said, hey,
your wife's going to make more money than you, he'd
just be.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Like, WHOA, wow, that's great, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Do you have like a great agent or a manager,
or somebody that you work with on your team that
you adore as well?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I work with Courtney Catzel.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
They're now CIA, but they were ICM and she's fantastic,
and she was the first young woman who I've ever
worked with, and it's been great because I think often
for someone like me, who if you've anchored a cable
show or a network show, everybody wants to have you
do the same thing you used to do this.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Hey, listen, we now have this open from two to four. Oh,
we don't want to do that. Well over here, there's
eleven to twelve. Oh there's this block over here.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
And I think she just really was very good at saying,
you know, maybe you want to do documentaries. Maybe you
could create a business and sell series and specials and
still anchor some stuff and do this and do that.
But I think for a lot of people when I
would say, you know, I think I want to run
a production company, they would just look at me, like,
you know, but what we have over here is such
(31:47):
and such from twelve to two. That's what you do.
So she could see it, where a lot of other people,
I think just couldn't, you know, couldn't quite get it.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I don't know how you do it, because when I
have to leave my dogs yeh, by the way, I'm
not kidding. And it's never a rational kind of a fear.
It's never a rational anxiety that you feel. It's just
the emotional anxiety of leaving these beings that rely so
much upon you right for any length of time. I mean,
(32:16):
do you ever regret it? I'm sorry to go back
to this, but I would like a good question because
I feel like, is there ever a moment when you
regretted not going to the tsunami? Did you go like,
oh shit, if I wasn't lying here with these twins,
like you know, I'm serious, Like, well.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
They sent me.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I got to go to the tsunami, so I didn't
regret that. But you know, I never regretted.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I didn't partly just I don't do a lot of like,
you know, living and regret is sort of a little
bit of how I'm made up.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
But I remember my daughter. I went to school in
New York City. She's twenty three now.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
She's still mad that I didn't go to fourth grade
graduation because here in New York City people graduate at
the end of every and I'm like, what, what you're
gonna We assumed, with all the money I'm spending on
your education, you are going to do just fine and
get through to graduation. But she was mad about it,
and so the next year I made sure I went
to graduation. I never regretted whatever I was doing as
(33:13):
a parent. I never regretted being in the field. I
love my work, and I think partly because my spouse
was very supportive. I just think everybody knew, like, mom
loves this job. Mom has a cool job, and she
loves her job. I remember when I was trying to
get to go to Haiti for the earthquake, and I
was on the phone trying to get people, somebody to
send me to Haiti, and my daughter was pretty young
(33:35):
back then, so she's probably must have been five or six,
and she's like somebody better send Mommy to Haiti. She's
so I think that they both understood, like everybody's much
happier if.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Mom gets to go on her stories.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
And also like I did miss some things that they did,
and we tried to come up with ways in which
to stay engaged. I'm really close to all of my kids,
and I know people who stayed home and have some
tense relationship with their kids.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So I don't think the formula.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I don't think the formula is, you know, time with
them equals equals right.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
There isn't one answer for that. There really isn't.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
But you know, we were also lucky.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I thank god, I have one child who's got very
severe hearing issues, but outside of that, he's always been healthy.
And you know, we didn't have any childhood illness, thank goodness.
You know, we were pretty able to kind of make
it work, and we had good help. I had a
couple of bad sitters, but once I kind of cleared
that out, I ended up having pretty good people who
stayed for years and years and years when the kids
(34:32):
were little. And you know, so all those things are
very lucky, and if they if it goes wrong, then
you find yourself with a bad sitter and having to travel.
I had a sitter once who ended up. You know,
someone told me that she was hitting my daughter, one
of my daughters.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
No, wow, Jesus, Well that'll make you feel anxious.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Well, now, just to continue this conversation about being a
woman in your industry and a woman with a great
deal of integrity. I remember a long time ago, I
did this thing with Cindy Crawford. Remember George Magazine. It
was a JFK junior is magazine that he ran, and
he hired me and Cindy and we sat in his
(35:13):
office and he clicked these slides for us and there
was this kind of crazy mandate for politicians about what
they should and shouldn't wear, like don't wear a dangling earring,
don't wear too much eyeliner, you know, whatever it was.
It was a bunch of stuff and it was shocking,
and we commented on it and he published.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
It as a story. Do you have a dress code?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Like do you have stuff that you should wear and
shouldn't wear? And do you have a glam squad? Do
you have a stylist?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
So usually you get a stylist for your show because
the show has kind of a dress code, so we do.
We just started the ninth season of Matter of Fact,
which is a show about public policy. It's a syndicated show,
and so that show has a stylist, and we are
just moved into a new studio and so we actually
had to kind of rethink what we're doing and what
we're wearing because now it's full body. I mean, part
(36:00):
of what I was wearing was my I was in
my bedroom during the pandemic shooting the show, so I
only had to wear it like mattered from the waist up.
So you know, I think we all sit around and say,
you know, what is the show about, what makes sense
for me, what makes sense for the audience, what makes
sense for the stories? And then of course when you're
in the field, over time, thank god, you just get
(36:22):
better at figuring out like that buttoned down Oxfordy type
shirt that you're wearing as you walk through a disaster zone.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
You know, you figure out like this I can wear.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And you've all seen people who are inappropriately dressed on
a story, but there was never like creezy or they
have you know, fake eyelashes and you're like, well, you're
covering a disaster, this is not okay.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
I guess so, except there's a funny thing about working
for networks, right, Like Deborah Messing once told me that
when she first started appearing in Willn Gray, someone said,
you know what, you have to wear a padded bra
because your boobies are too small, you know. And I
just wonder if you ever came across any of that
kind of weird funny things.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
There's less pressure like at the network. No one would
say for me, at least, no one would ever say
something like that. In local news, they did have a
very big hand back then when I was there, and
you couldn't cut your hair without permission, you couldn't rise
without permission.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
If you gained weight, it made people uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So I knew people who had those kinds of things
in their contract, but I never saw that in network news.
I had a boss once who told me when I
was pregnant, I was always a very big, old pregnant lady.
I just gained a lot of weight and he said
I was making him uncomfortable. And I was like, you
want to talk about uncomfortable, let me tell you about
(37:39):
being uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
That is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Well, I'm sure there were things about how men dressed too,
but it was simple. It was like, don't wear double
breasted suits, you know. And I often wonder if David
Muir gets notes like could you cut your hair a
little bit, please shave or something, or I'm guessing he
does get those notes. And I'm also guessing that men
have stylists as well.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, most networks will do that.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Maybe the gap is closing a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
I think that's true. I think most most men do
at the network level.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
So now do you notice something about the way people
present themselves? Now that's different than say Walter Cronkite or
Dan Rather or you know, Diane Sawyer or something. You know,
It's like they were like quote unquote impartial. They couldn't say,
oh my god, can you believe like what Donald Trump
(38:32):
is saying today, you know, whereas like now I can
tell when you talk how you feel about a certain thing.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, I think the thing I find frustrating is opinion
right where people instead of saying okay, where they just
want to talk only about their own point of view,
And I'm like, I don't I don't care about your
point of view. I want to hear from an expert,
an expert I agree with, even maybe an expert I
don't agree with. But I'm interested in others people's point
of view, and if I'm giving my own opinion, it's
(39:02):
here's how I feel about it, and let me tell
you why I'm informed that way. So, for example, when
you have a guest Don who is against interracial marriage,
and often when I was at CNN, we would be
reporting on that. I'm not gonna pretend as a kid
who's a product of an interracial marriage, like, oh yeah,
I have no thoughts on this, and that would just
(39:23):
be that's just would be disingenuous, right think you you know.
On the other hand, I'm not an expert outside of
my own personal experience, so the whole segment is not
going to be about my take on it.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I'm interested in their take.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
But I feel like you have to explain to people
your point of view if you have a strong one
or some kind of connection. That said, I do think
in the Walter Cronkite days, as much as they were objective,
remember they left a whole bunch of communities just out
right objective, and yet they're like, we don't believe these people.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
Matter so right.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
There, we got their point.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Of view by who they just left out right like
they were not going to bother with certain communities, they
were not going to hire certain people, and they did
not think certain issues were worthy of talking about.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
They didn't call it their bias.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
They were completely objective, and yet there was tons of bias.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Darling, can you talk for a minute about where the
phrase fake news is concerned, because you know, before twenty sixteen,
if somebody reported on an insurrection taking place on the
White House, they wouldn't refer to it as politicizing the
news and questioning its veracity because we have the footage,
we have the story, we know it happens. So can
(40:49):
you address that a little bit as an insider, you know,
a person who understands what the hell.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
Is going on.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
So I think fake news kind of the definition is
just news you don't agree with, right. Some people do
it jokingly, Oh that's fake news, and some people are
very serious. But really it's news that doesn't reflect your
own personal opinion. It cannot be real because you disagree.
Part of the challenge has been that Cable specifically, but
news organizations across the board. The news is only political
(41:19):
now right. I mean, back in the day, I spent
so little time talking to people at the White House.
You'd say, Jane's at the White House, Jane. They say,
that's right, soll it ad. The President's going to do
blah bla blah blah, and you'd say, Jane Jones at
the White House for us, Thank you, Jane, and you'd
move on to all the other stories. And then suddenly
we started covering really politics as kind of the main story.
(41:41):
The country itself also at the same time becoming more
and more partisan, and more and more divided, and more
and more political, and then people started picking and choosing
because every story became political. Part of the challenge is
where I think news bears some responsibility. You know, they say,
if you only have a hammer, everything's in right. And
I think if if your whole point is to really
(42:04):
just cover the politics of something, as opposed to going
into communities and just reporting, traveling, doing stories. I do
a public policy show, we do so little of reporting
on politics. I do not let people on the air
to argue. And also, one thing the news has really
messed up is that when you put people against each other, Right,
(42:25):
this person on the left and this person on the right.
They fight in real life, it's usually not the way
actual organizations ran. I mean, imagine if in your business
you're like, I'm going to take my most far person
over here, put them against this person who has a
completely I'm gonna let them battle it out, you'd say, no, no, no.
The person I want to elevate is the guy in
(42:45):
my office or the woman in my office, who has consensus,
who brings people together, who's interested in hearing people's suff of.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Course, but can you please take into account like what
Twitter has done to the news, what social media you're
done to the news.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Absolutely, the news is competing with Twitter. They're competing with
social media. That means your stuff has to be more
salacious and things that were just I can't believe they're
covering that story became I don't believe this story. I
remember when CNN had a breaking news Britney Spears cut
her hair and we're like, this is so embarrassing, Like
what this breaking news? Because we're CNN. Are we reporting
(43:24):
on this story like it's a story?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Today? I think it's gone further.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
But news is trying to compete with social media, right people,
My daughters, my sons. They don't watch the news. I
wish I could tell you they did, but they don't.
They get snippets of the news through TikTok, through x now,
through Instagram. They look up whatever they're interested in. They
read the paper if it's sitting there on the table,
(43:49):
but they don't run to the couch and sit down.
My dad used to sit down and say, shush, everybody,
make Neil lair news hours on and God, God save you,
God save you if you were like made noise during
the McNeil Larra news hour. But now, I mean news
to some degree has become entertainment because they're trying to
compete every time the news says like here's a heartwarming
(44:13):
story from Instagram, this little kid, you know, funny wacky video,
because they're trying to grab those eyeballs and migrate them over.
But I think most of the people who are on
social media have already seen it.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Do you think we're doomed a little bit?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Darling?
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Do you think what do you think is going to happen? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Right, Like, don't you think it's corroded to such an
extent now by social media? It's kind of like yell,
people just go, oh, I hate that restaurant. Meantime, they're
talking about a really good restaurant, and I don't know
why they're hating on it so much, just because they
have nothing better to do with something, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
It starts becoming a little irrelevant, and I think that
is a real risk. But you know, there's a whole
generation of people, I think, who are going to come
up with a new strategy because right now, news on
the Internet is literally just migrated from the evening news.
Right every time you see it, it's a boy and
a girl and.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
They're sitting next to each other and they're like, oh,
that's right, bob. You know they they had this chit chat.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
They haven't figured out like, all right, but what is
news delivery on the internet in a way that people
will actually say, oh, I like this. We really haven't
figured that out yet. I think a lot of what
people want to see is traveling, going places, bringing information.
It's why documentaries, I think do so well. People are
interested in understanding context. Yeah, the little show that we do,
(45:38):
I'm telling you does so well. And it's we don't
allow politicians on, we don't allow debates.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
We literally send.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Crews, and we just say we are here to serve
the viewer, and so I'm here to help them under
understand an issue.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
So here's an ishow. We're going to dig.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Into it, and we're going to help you walk away smarter.
You're going to get it. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
You might be onto something, darl You might be onto
something if someone approached the news as though they were
cutting a documentary. But of course then you have the
editor who feels a certain way and who feels that
you know that the insurrection was a lie, or that
the Holocaust was a lie, or that slavery was a lie.
I just wonder if there's a way around any of
that anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
It's a scary time.
Speaker 4 (46:20):
Is there an agency?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
It's a scary time, Listen. I think that we're in
the middle of a very big shift because what exists
is not working. And I think you have you know,
the viewership of these shows is dropping. And I remember
years ago, you know, a lot of these news shows
were the most important twenty two minutes of the day.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
You wake up and you had to watch what was happening,
and that's.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Just not the case today, Darling, Do you have conversations
with people about what you watched this morning. You didn't
because you've seen it already. If you missed it, it's
already on Instagram. You can read the transcript on the internet.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
You missed nothing.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
And so I do think it's a very scary time
for the end Street for sure.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Have you altered your reality based on followship or something
like do you make your show fun and short or something,
because you know that that's what gets people's attention.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Me on social media is very different than my show
on social media, they just don't overlap that much. My
boss was saying this the other day. She's like, our
viewers are on TV. We're a syndicated show. We're a
network of affiliates people who watch us. So we actually
spend a lot of time traveling to Kansas City, Nevada,
at West Palm Beach, Houston where we have stations and
we go meet with people and we say, what's your
(47:37):
story here? Because one thing people hate is having someone
report on stories in their hometown and get it wrong.
Whenever a poor reporter had to come to Long Island
and they hadn't been there and they're like hop poggy
and missing wog. I mean, they couldn't pronounce anything, you know,
and you just knew, like this person doesn't know anything
about this neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
They're just faking it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
And I do think that we try to make sure
that we're going to talk about, you know, why are
rural hospitals in Nebraska closing and what's the implication of
that around the country. Like that's what we do, and
for me, it's just much more interesting. That's just not
on social media. It's not what's happening.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Well, you know what. My final question for you, it's
about your obituary. What's the headline say and what is
it about.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I've actually thought about this so much because people often
ask you about your legacy, and I really think my obituary,
my obituary would say something like solidad O'Brien, dedicated mom,
devoted wife and really committed member of her community, drop
dead yesterday. She was known for doing X, Y and
(48:44):
Z and journalism. But like I think, like those are
the things, right, don't you want to be like a
good person. I want people to say, like, oh my god,
my mom died and she was amazing.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
I love I love people who love their parents.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
I love My parents passed away a couple of years ago,
and I just I miss them so much, and they
were such good people and you know, you couldn't There's
nothing you'd find on Google about them. They were just
great people and I really miss so and I felt
very lucky to have them. So I hope I'm that
this is incredible. I mean, what an inspiration to hear
that from you. I would never have guessed that, never, yes,
(49:19):
especially not after this talk that we've had, that you
would value those personal things more than oh, yeah, than
you would like. You know, Solodet O'Brien, huge star on television,
huge journalist, with incredible integrity, and no, none of that.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
You don't care. You just want to be a good person.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
That's great, No, I mean, you know, you win.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
I like winning awards, But isn't it much nicer when
you have a kid who like turns out well, or
who takes your advice, or who just is a nice
person and who loves us. My kids are all getting
into that twenties age and it's really nice.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
It's really nice, incredible, incredible, very inspiring answer, Darling. Okay, well,
what do you want to promote on this podcast?
Speaker 1 (50:01):
I'm going to promote matter of Fact because we were
talking about it, and I think it's a really good
option for people who are trying to get news. That's
they're going to walk away learning more and understanding more.
Our goal is to really serve the audience and help
people understand issues. It's a syndicated show in the ninety
five percent of the country, so you can find us
online just by googling us matter of Fact dot tv.
(50:23):
We'll tell you where we are in your matter of effect.
Neck of the Woods matter of Fact with Solidad O'Brien.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
I can't wait. Thank you, Thank you so much, so
Lad you're the best.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Nice
to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
That was such a fascinating talk because I know Soldat
O'Brien a little bit, and I know that she's a planner.
One of her famous quotes is like, you know, one
way to come across, you know, as someone smart, is
to be more prepared than anyone else in the room.
And when you consider all of that, and you consider that,
(51:01):
you know, she and her entire family went to Harvard, right,
and then the whole way that she sort of fell
into journalism fell into the career that she has now
and how incredibly far that has taken her, as you know,
both a news anchor and a media personality. It's just
so inspiring that she ended the whole thing by talking
(51:25):
about what would be in her obituary, you know, like, oh,
she was a great mom and a great wife, like
all of that is always such a surprise to me
coming from such incredibly erudite and accomplished personalities. And it
was very, very inspiring to me personally that she cares
(51:45):
more about being a good person and leaving the legacy
of a good person behind as opposed to some kind
of like giant, giant giant superstar who took over the world.
I just think that's so inspiring, especially when you consider
what we're all going through right now. You know, it's
(52:06):
just inspiring when someone says they want to be remembered
for being a good person. Well, I will always remember
Sola Dad O'Brien for being a good person.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Darlings.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favorite and
tell someone, Tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin,
tell everyone you know.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
Okay, and be sure to rate the show. I love
rating stuff.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
Go on and rate and review the show on Apple
Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes
such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second,
so go on and do it. And if you want
more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow
the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast
(52:58):
And by the way, check me out on Instagram and
TikTok at.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
I Am Isaac Musrahi.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
This is Isaac Misrahi, thank you, I love you, and
I never thought I'd say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello
Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I
AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by Me
Isaac Msrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The
(53:28):
senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. Vis Executive
produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Caarra Welker, and Nathan
Klokey at Imagine Audio, Production management from Katie Hodges, Sound
design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed by
Ben Wilson. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah
(53:49):
katanak At I Am entertainment,
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