O’Brien to address UH-Downtown grads
Soledad O’Brien has a message for new college graduates: “You are remarkable.”
The award-winning journalist will deliver Saturday’s University of Houston-Downtown commencement address virtually on Facebook.
“The idea that you’ve been able to graduate at a time when there is so much happening, it’s easy to forget how remarkable it is,” O’Brien said by phone from her New York home.
“I think my message is always: ‘Don’t forget how remarkable it is, and how remarkable you are for getting the work done for making it happen.’ ”
O’Brien, who is CEO of Soledad O’Brien Productions, reports for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and is host and producer of Hearst Corp.’s political magazine program “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien.”
She speaks frequently to college students and supports and mentors young women through her PowHERful Foundation.
“It’s a real blessing to have an education,” said O’Brien, a graduate of Harvard University. “Both of my parents came to this country in search of an education. They’re both foreigners. So I fully recognize it is a blessing to use for the greater good. You have to use it to help others and make the world a better place.”
O’Brien, 54, was born to an Australian-Irish father and AfroCuban mother and began her TV broadcast career at the NBC affiliate in Boston. She went on to coanchor NBC’s “Weekend Today,” as well as CNN’s “American Morning.”
Her CNN docuseries “Latino in America” and “Black in America” won acclaim for deep storytelling about the cultures of those communities. While at the network she also pitched, “Asian in America,” but she said she was told there were not enough interested viewers. She got a similar response to her proposed “Native in America” series about American Indians.
“I found myself often hitting a wall when it came to thinking about stories that I think we would now say, ‘Oh my gosh, that would have been so forward-thinking,’ ” she said.
With her own production company and freelance assignments, O’Brien now can tell stories on her terms.
“Now I get to work only on projects I like with people I like, and it’s been a real blessing.”
She’s finishing a special anniversary report on the killing of George Floyd to air on BET.
O’Brien also has found a voice connecting with people on Twitter — and she regularly posts photos of her puppies Coco and Teddy, which she and her family (husband Brad Raymond and their four children) adopted during the pandemic.
“It feels like things are moving in the right direction,” she said. “I just need a little tiny bit of optimism, and I’m joyful.”