Keith: [00:00:00] All right. This week's guest I'm so excited about, I haven't seen her in a couple of years, Soledad O'Brien, how are you? [00:00:05][5.0]
Soledad: [00:00:06] Hi, I'm great. It's nice to see you, even though it's over Zoom and not in person. How are you? [00:00:10][4.2]
Keith: [00:00:11] I'm doing well. I'm doing well. As I been saying, I'm living the upstate life. I'm chopping wood and doing all the fun stuff that you do in your stuck up here. [00:00:19][7.8]
Soledad: [00:00:19] The upstate life is a very nice life. When you get out of an apartment or you get out of the city in some capacity, I really I grew up in suburbia, so I actually there's so much about suburbia and I know everybody rolls their eyes when you see Suburbia and live in this city, too. But there's a lot about suburbia that I really like. [00:00:35][15.9]
Keith: [00:00:36] Yeah, you do a lot of horse riding. Is that correct? [00:00:38][1.9]
Soledad: [00:00:38] I do well. So thing number one, like in suburbia, horses that you can't really do in New York City, although you used to be able to in Central Park, but it was going to. And so it's much easier when you have a car and a back seat and a place to drive and easy parking and a barn. But yeah, I do a ton of horseback riding. I really love it. I'm not very good, but it kind of is the thing I really love. [00:00:59][20.5]
Keith: [00:01:00] That's amazing. Well, we'll talk about the thing that funds that right now, which is Soledad O'Brien Productions, a.k.a. S.O.B Productions. So let's start there. What is Soledad O'Brien Productions and when did you start it and how to get off the ground? [00:01:12][12.8]
Soledad: [00:01:13] We started it as Starfish Media Group, right when I left CNN, which was 2013. And so Soledad O'Brien Productions really is still that same entity. We do the same things which were we were focused, uncovering sort of stories that I think about marginalized people or stories that they themselves or stories are marginalized, that people just don't care about them. They fly under the radar a lot, which is interesting because often those stories are marginalized, but they shouldn't be because they affects a wide swath of people. And we've really seen that in the pandemic and in the kind of sort of wake of the pandemic, right? This idea of like, wow, hunger is not just a sad story about a few unlucky people who couldn't do a thing. Hunger is a huge swath of the American public is hungry and they look like everybody. They look like everybody. If you were to hop on a subway, they look like everybody. So stories like that kind of have become our bread and butter of the kinds of stories that we want to tell. We do some branded stuff or a couple of shows, and then we do a lot of documentaries and docu series [00:02:12][59.4]
Keith: [00:02:14] in starting this. Was it because you couldn't get those things published at CNN, or was it the autonomy that you wanted to have? [00:02:20][6.4]
Soledad: [00:02:20] You know, a little bit of both. I think one at CNN. My bosses were not all that interested in what I was doing. And so I think that they felt like I could be replaced. I shouldn't be anchoring a show. You know, and everything moves around a lot at CNN, as I'm sure you've seen. So someone can tell you you're never going to anchor here. And then six months later, you'll be anchoring. But, you know, I felt like they were interested in me being a backup. And I didn't think I needed to be a backup, and I give it a lot of advice. We run a small foundation for young women, and I really felt like I don't need to be the backup. And I consistently told these young women, like, if people don't believe in you, that's not a place to stay. When someone doesn't believe in you, that's run as fast as you can. And so I couldn't really not take my own advice, which was if you are working for someone who doesn't believe in you, it's time to find a new job. And I had done that several times before when I was working in local news. I first started working at MSNBC. I've been on shows and I felt like if the people in the show don't want me, then maybe I should do something else. So that part wasn't a really hard decision. To be honest, you know, it wasn't a really like, gut wrenching. This is my life. I've always felt very good. I think I have a pretty good sense of what I bring to the table. I've always been pretty good about that. I know in some places when I'm a dime a dozen, you know, and you're like, Listen, that you will leave and 17 other people will be in line for your job. And I know when I have some skills that I think are valuable and differentiate me and that I should be able to market them elsewhere. But then I've been reporting for a long time and I had a long, really good career and I've been quite successful. I knew that my name had value and my reputation had a lot of value. And so I just thought this was the time to leverage it. Not to say, you know, Oh yes, put me in the rotation with me, with four kids. You know, I'll work whatever schedule that you guys can figure out. That just seemed like that would be a hugely disastrous for my life. [00:04:19][118.9]
Keith: [00:04:20] Amazing. And that's the big picture part of it, right? I think I can do this. I know I can do this. What are the kind of the minutia details of you're just one person, did you? Before leaving go, OK, I need four or five other people in these particular roles ready and set to go. [00:04:34][14.0]
Soledad: [00:04:34] Or I had never run anything. I mean, you know, I had one employee. And wasn't even my employee right? That you, if you were an anchor, you got an assistant? So I had one employee and, you know, I wasn't even sure what I needed. I never hired anyone. I didn't really have an employee. I had an assistant who really worked for the company. There was so much I didn't know. There was so much. I didn't know that I didn't even know. So it was pretty overwhelming at first. And I knew what I was good at. But of course, you know, doing shows, anchoring, reporting, giving speeches, all those things I think have high value. But there needs to be an entire infrastructure underneath that allows that to happen in some capacity. And so it really was a process of figuring out who to hire, how many people to hire, even then even going to look at real estate in New York City, right? Yeah, there was office space and people would say, you know, well, how much space do you need? I was like, Well, how the hell do I know? I don't even know what this is going to be. I know all the shit that's on my dining room table needs to be moved into someplace else. Like that I know. But it really was kind of crazy and chaotic. And, you know, I didn't ever really feel super worried because frankly, I had left CNN with a lot of money and I could put that money into a company. So I was able to kind of buy my way out of any mistakes, you know? So not in a major way, but you know, if you invested in the wrong phone system, right, and it cost you another $100 to change it over, that wouldn't break the bank. And so I always feel very lucky that I had saved a lot of my money from working at CNN and working at NBC before that so that I really had something to lean on. And I didn't have to figure out like, how am I going to pay my way over the next year and a bit before this company becomes profitable? The other thing that was helpful was, and I think my guess was right, that I had a big enough name that I was able to pretty quickly become profitable. We did enough deals immediately. OK. You know, we were profitable, not wildly profitable, but profitable. And that was another thing that sort of set my mind at ease. [00:06:42][127.5]
Keith: [00:06:43] It sounds like you did have a kind of a year plan and say, Listen, if we make zero money for a year, we'll still be OK. Was that the hope? [00:06:49][6.2]
Soledad: [00:06:50] You know, the bigger issue for me was the money was obviously important, but it was also, you can't just disappear when you work in TV news, you can't just go away. And so you had to kind of take a moment, get it together and then launch and launch something big and viable. And so it really was about kind of getting out there as soon as I possibly could with a good name and a good strategy. And what do we want to be? And all those questions had to be kind of answered simultaneously along with how many square feet do you want? And you know, and do you want it to be built out or do you want to build it out? And how do you build out something and how long will it take? And just a lot of questions. [00:07:23][33.3]
Keith: [00:07:24] Do you remember the first project that you worked on as a solopreneur there? [00:07:27][3.4]
Soledad: [00:07:29] Well, we really started projects. We had a deal, actually. I left CNN with a deal to produce a couple of documentaries, and so we had three doc deal with CNN, which is really what helped us be profitable. And we took on some other projects too. My biggest mistake, right, was saying yes and not saying the clock starts ticking six months from now or three months from now, giving myself some time to get into an office so everything was just being done simultaneously. That part was very stressful. So I do remember it was our very first. We did a doc called Black and Blue, which was about stop and frisk and the NYPD. Really great doc. But to do that, half on my dining room table, because we were at the same time looking for office space at the same time, trying to figure out who do you hire. And again, I wish someone had just said, I mean, it's why I always encourage people who are starting companies or just thinking about their next step, like talk to people because it's those little you said it, you know, what's the minutia of things that will kill you, you know? And literally, if somebody just said, Wow, that's great, you're going to get some projects when you can build in starts three months from now, CNN didn't care. When we did them. They didn't have to start tomorrow, but all of them literally started the next day. I mean, that's how these deals are usually done. No one factors in a wait a minute, she doesn't have a space. [00:08:43][74.6]
Keith: [00:08:44] Yeah, she needs that time. It's funny because I think man it might have been three or four years ago, one of the first times that we met, and I was asking you this advice because it's like, I'm starting this thing and I'm trying to do it. And you said, you know, it's not complicated, but it's hard. A, dp you remember saying that? And then B, do you kind of know what you mean by that? Because I took it and it's now a little bit of my mantra, but I would love to hear kind of what that means to you. [00:09:08][24.3]
Soledad: [00:09:09] Yeah. You know, I do remember saying it because I've said it seventeen million times because I think sometimes you begin to feel a little stupid and you're not stupid, right? Because it is not complicated, but it is hard because you're building for a thing you've never done before. And, you know, imagine you're building out your house, but you've never lived in a house. You have no idea what you like and how much space you need and how many bedrooms have no idea what you're going to need. I mean, that's what you're sort of being asked to do. Are you going to end up having three kids so you can have one kid or no kids? And it's sort of like that. That was my take was that you? It wasn't super complicated, but it is. There's just a lot of pieces, and it's very easy when you haven't done it a bunch of times to forget the pieces. [00:09:53][44.1]
Keith: [00:09:55] Yeah. You know, one of the other parts that I took from that was, you know, there are some people who kind of have an air of, well, I'm the entrepreneur, I'm sure, and I can do it, but I don't think everybody can do it and what your advice was pretty darn pragmatic, like, no, yeah, you can do it. It's going to hurt. It's going to be difficult. But it's not something that you need some sort of Ivy League degree or you need like a crown bestowed on you to be this entrepreneur. [00:10:18][23.8]
Soledad: [00:10:19] Yeah, I think you have to just be willing to learn and you have to be willing to be humiliated and willing to and not by other people, but just by yourself every day and willing. I remember coming in to work one day thinking like, I would just like today to be easy. I would just ask before I learned anything. I just don't want to learn anything. I just want it to be easy. You know, so I think that to me was kind of how it was. It just felt like it was so much work all the time and it didn't have to be. And then one day you turn a corner and you're like, Oh, I get it. But by the way, it's exactly how every job I've ever had. You know, when you got into your career and suddenly you're like, Oh my God, I remember working as a PA and TV news as a production assistant running errands in the first time, someone said, We want you to write this thing and you thinking, like, you're panicked, you don't know what you're doing, you're stressed, you know, it just was awful, you know? And then a year from then when you've done it a hundred times, you think, Oh, I got it because, you know, all those little things that can screw you up. They're not super challenging. They're just, they're going to kill you if you don't get them right. [00:11:20][60.8]
Keith: [00:11:20] Yeah, it's funny. I read a little bit about and listen to other podcasts you've done where you've talked about. This was not your calling or this was not the thing that you thought you were going to be doing in life. But as somebody who sits there and watches you on TV, it just seems so natural and seems like. Well, of course, she was a ten-year-old kid wanting to do this. Can you talk a little bit about the progression towards this? [00:11:38][17.8]
Soledad: [00:11:38] Yeah, I'm going to send you some of my early releases so that you can say, You know what? I was wrong. Not natural. It was a lot of it's a lot of work being natural. You know, I think for me, it was just being comfortable on camera was never super natural. And what I really realized was when I was knowledgeable that I was OK and that I'm just not a faker. So what made me good at my job was just really being a good student, which I'd always been a kind of a good student. And then you had to learn a couple of things about I used to do weird things like tilt my head weirdly or say umm umm all the time, but those are little things you can get rid of. It was really about liking the medium to tell stories, you know, figuring out how to why not be a writer? Why not do something else? And so I really ended up just liking, usually using visual storytelling more than anything else. And so, no, I was not a natural. I was terrible. I really was. I just didn't really know what I was doing, but I was a very hard worker and I also knew it was a learnable skill. I didn't think it was magic. I think the people who are best at it kind of just got out of their way. You know, one of my biggest challenges sometimes is I'm an overthinker and even in horseback riding, right? My trainer will always say, like the horses jumping fine, you don't have to help him. He's really good. Like, he'll just, you know, you just sit back, then hold on. He's going to be good, like, help him out, but you don't need to jump it for him. It's sort of when you start breaking through like, Oh yeah, I don't need to jump it for him. You know, you just figure out the things that you need to do to put yourself in the best position to be successful. Then it starts to get really fun. [00:13:11][92.8]
Keith: [00:13:12] Were there mentorships that you had early on that helped you pave the way? I did. [00:13:16][3.5]
Soledad: [00:13:16] Yeah, yeah, I had a number of mentors. I'm also really good at squeezing the life out of people and making them mentor me, even if they don't want to. Meaning I think I have a lot of mentors who didn't even know they're mentoring me. People who I watched like a hawk and kind of was like, Oh, this is interesting. Oh, and some people who certainly as TV anchors who I thought were great mentors for what to never do. You know who were terrible, who were terrible and really were just terrible people. And I just I thought like, Wow, when you scream at the underlings who are running scripts, you don't look powerful, you look awful. You look crazy. It's not a good look, you know, so you learn a lot of things just by watching people and what they're doing. That's great. [00:13:57][41.1]
Keith: [00:13:58] Now, I tried to count all the different things that you're currently working on, or at least that are are live right now. And I think I lost track of like five or six. So the HBO docu series five, there's multiple podcasts, multiple shows on multiple different channels. How do you choose what to work on and then what medium as well that that'd fit? [00:14:17][19.1]
Soledad: [00:14:17] It's pretty basic. In some ways. It's very much a is it interesting to me? That's kind of the first thing. And then there's another layer where someone in the office will say, No, no, this is interesting to you. You think it's not, but it is. Let me explain, but that's kind of the first thing. Like, it's like, Oh, that's interesting. And then I think the same thing, the project and the medium usually go together, right? Someone says it's going to be a podcast about this. It's going to be a TV show about that. So I turned down things that I just feel like I don't have anything to add to it, and I don't have any value to add. Like, I'm not sure that that me doing it is going to make it different than anybody else doing it. You know, you mention your HBO series, it just started streaming on HBO Max, but like, that's put to bed. So I look at that thing is longer. Even though it's right now just started arid because of the way we look at our deadlines, obviously, but it depends and probably my bigger problem is I just I'm so interested in so many things that we say yes to a lot of things. Yeah. And then when it comes to partners, we say yes to partners we like. I mean, I'm really ridiculously easy about it. If I like you I will work with you. And if I don't, we will never, ever, ever work together. It's very, you know, I just life is too short and now I'm too old. You know, there's never been a day where I think this is a terrible person. This is a terrible project to work on with them. But you know, we're going to suck it up. I literally have ended meetings saying, like, You know what? I think this is not a good fit, but thank you so much. I just it just sucks you dry. It's so miserable to work on a project with someone who's just not fun to work with. [00:15:47][89.6]
Keith: [00:15:47] Yeah, I have a mentor of mine who he was giving me advice that now I'm like, You know what? I kind of like it. He said that I'm an asshole to assholes. And he was like, It's very clear when you think the other person's like being meaner. And he said, that was like, you got to watch it and be careful with it. And I actually now I'm wearing it kind of as a badge or it's like, Yeah, if you think I'm being mean to you, it's probably because you've been a jerk to me or a jerk to others. [00:16:09][21.8]
Soledad: [00:16:10] So it is. It's it's I remember being in a meeting with an agent, someone we were trying to work with, and he was so rude. And, you know, it surprised me that the other team the person had hired, the agent didn't stop it. Like if my agent had been so nasty, I literally would have been like, Steve, can I see you outside for a minute? Like, is there some issue? Like, Are they bugging you because your tone is really off? And we like them, so we know we're not in a fight with them. We're trying to work together, but I'm going to reflect back to you so you could see it like your tone is not nice. So the thing that sort of surprised me was one their agent was awful to my staff. Very nice to me, horrible to my staffers. And then number two, they would not jump in and do anything. They would just be like, Oh, I see how this is going to go. Like, Nope, nope, nope. Nope, we're not doing this. [00:17:01][51.5]
Keith: [00:17:02] I'm going to give you a little credit here, and serendipity is funny. Sometimes my friend gave me a book essays of George Saunders, and the first essay is called The Brain Dead Megaphone, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but you get a nice shout-out at the beginning of it. And he wrote this in 2006 or 2007, but he mentions the interview that you did with the FEMA director at the time, Browning. That's so funny. Do remember that? Do you remember that interview where you kind of go back? [00:17:26][24.2]
Soledad: [00:17:26] I remember the interview well. I didn't realize that he had written about it in his book. [00:17:29][3.4]
Keith: [00:17:31] Very shortly the whole premise of and you might dig this premise. The brain dead megaphone is just the people that speak the loudest tend to take up the most air, and people are communicating that. And you know, that's what Twitter is right now, right? [00:17:42][11.0]
Soledad: [00:17:42] It really. It's what TV news, to some degree, is because, right, like you elevate somebody who's just loud and who's even if they're spewing misinformation, they get a seat at the table when everybody else would be like, Yeah, but but no one thinks the world is flat, so we wouldn't put him on the air because he's not an expert. He's not. But because he's this loud person, it's just so crazy. Yeah, I remember that interview very well. It was so crazy because it was just, you know, he just lived in a different world, ticking off for me, all the things that were making their way as if the storm was on its way. And I'm like, Yeah, well, we're kind of late in the game on this. [00:18:16][33.3]
Keith: [00:18:16] Yeah, well, I just loved it. And it was again serendipity where I wasn't reading that any connection to this. But it was just like, Oh, wow, you've been doing this for 20 plus years. [00:18:25][8.7]
Soledad: [00:18:25] You've been get thirty three years, you're crazy. [00:18:29][3.8]
Keith: [00:18:30] And still with that same level of let's get to the truth. Let's find out what's really happening here. [00:18:35][5.2]
Soledad: [00:18:36] You know, not every project needs that. I think a lot of projects are, let's go and explore. I did a piece the other day at the Norton Museum of Art that was about Frida Kahlo. So it wasn't like, Gimme the truth, it's just like, This is beautiful. Let's go open up. You know, I guess I think my biggest mission is, how do you explain things to an audience like make it worth somebody's time? You should explain it. You should make it make sense. You demystify it. Sometimes I think when you platform people who are conspiracy theorists or liars, you're like, Well, that didn't help explain anything that's actually more confusing. You just added more junk to their day. [00:19:12][35.7]
Keith: [00:19:12] Yeah, and put more disinformation out there even thinking you're talking to somebody who because their job title or what they're doing in the world matters and they're known liars, it makes it difficult. So, so crazy. I do want to talk about HBO's Black and Missing. I got to, I watched it all in one day. I'll give you the context as well. So I was down in Florida with my mother has breast cancer and she had her surgery. Sorry. And so I was down there helping her to recover. So it was a nice break from cable news to have something like this. [00:19:41][29.5]
Soledad: [00:19:42] And it's a very beautiful documentary series. [00:19:44][2.3]
Keith: [00:19:44] It's blown away by the stories. And you know, I just wanted to first get it understanding how did you find the founders of Black and Missing Foundation and how did this story come about? [00:19:54][9.8]
Soledad: [00:19:54] We had read about them. There's a guy who does development in my office who had read about them- a little tiny article and I had met them, actually. They were featured at Black Girls Rock. And they got an award and they stood up and they spoke and they're very quiet women. So when you meet them, you don't think like, Wow, this could be a really groundbreaking documentary because they're, you know, they're not big giant loud characters. You know, they're quite normal and quiet and everyone in that doc, right? There's no like sidewalk preacher who's you know what we would think of as like, Oh, he's a character naked cowboy. He's a character. We should, you know? But they were just so, so inspiring in a way and so thoughtful and so not fake about it. They just really, you know, every day they try to scoop up a teaspoon of sand from the ocean, right? Like, and they come back the next day and they come back the next day and they come back the next day. And not every day is a good day, and not every day is a bad day. But I love that sense of them just plodding away to do the work and what they were really able to do. So I always joke with them that I had to talk them into it, and we did. I did. And then they would say, Oh, don't be ridiculous when Soledad O'Brien calls you and I'm like, Sorry, I remember it differently. But, you know, because being featured in a doc is a big commitment. People have to camp out with you and people have to, you know, tell your story. And it's a big commitment, you know? So I did sort of grumble and sort of say, like, Listen, you know, I want you to do it, but I don't ambush people and I don't talk them into a thing like I'm very good at saying, like, this is what it's going to be. I hate to be misled. I hate when somebody tells me something and it's not really true. I'd much rather have someone say, We're doing a root canal. This is what it is like. Let me explain. So, you know, and so it wasn't equivalent to a root canal, but it was certainly a lot of time and a lot of commitment. And I really appreciated that they were willing to go ahead and spend all that time with us. [00:21:48][113.5]
Keith: [00:21:48] I loved how they because they are just definitely understated and hardworking and diligent. But they unlocked this understanding of media savvy and the fact that there's this need to kind of push not only the police force but also the local community. And if it's getting coverage, they'll get all of those people behind them. [00:22:09][20.8]
Soledad: [00:22:10] Well, that's what they do, right? I mean, Derrica was former law enforcement, and Natalie was, is a PR person. So basically, they took what they do and they leveraged it to be able to help on some front. I mean, they were able to. I love that they're so straightforward about things. I love that they're kind of like, Listen, if you pick a picture where your kid looks, you know, ratchety, it's not going to connect with people. So we're going to help you pick a good picture. If you yourself don't look prepared for TV. You know, if you're fighting with the police, if you don't have an updated photo like, you know, if you don't have a missing poster, we know all these things are going to really have an impact on whether or not your loved one can be found. So I do think they were able to really leverage their skills very effectively. I mean, talk about sort of knowing what your gifts are and then using your gifts. [00:23:02][52.7]
Keith: [00:23:03] Yeah. And I'll give a couple of the stats that just again blew my mind. 2020, I think it was 500000 people were reported missing, with nearly 40 percent of them being a minority or a person of color. [00:23:15][12.0]
Soledad: [00:23:16] How crazy is that? How crazy is that? And domestic violence, which went up in the pandemic, heavily correlated, highly correlated to the missing persons cases. [00:23:27][11.0]
Keith: [00:23:27] That's what I wanted to talk about. Some of the other systemic failures that lead to missing cases, that lead to these things. The one I think that hit me the hardest was the six-year-old girl. I believe Relisha, whose family was in the shelter and all the things that went down there, unfortunately at the shelter to make her life even harder. The thing that broke me the most was when her mother said, Well, we didn't report it because I didn't want my other kids to be taken away. [00:23:51][23.8]
Soledad: [00:23:53] And you know, it makes perfect sense in the system, right? It literally makes perfect sense. In a perfect world, you'd say, Oh my God, that's horrific. But in her world, it makes perfect sense. [00:24:05][12.3]
Keith: [00:24:06] Yeah. What did you learn from some of the other folks? Because the other connection that I thought was just so amazing was the people that volunteer with this group all had personal experience, with a loved one being missing. And there's even when I won't, I won't blow it. But there's even one that was missing. What did you learn from them about? Like how much they put into this in the heart and the soul that they put into this project? [00:24:27][21.0]
Soledad: [00:24:28] Yeah, it's amazing, you know? And I think it's because again, just like Natalie and Derrica, they think they can be helpful in a special way, right? They believe that there's something that they can bring. I can sit there and hold somebody's hand and I can say, Oof, I cannot imagine what you're going through and they can sit there and say, I know exactly what you're going through. So here's what's going to happen. Here's how it's going to go. Here's how you going to feel next week. Here's what information is going to come at you, and here's how you're going to want to respond. I really thought that was a very interesting angle on, you know, get people who are just imagine, imagine you have this horrible tragedy in your life and the way you manage it, the way you deal with it is to go help other people navigate their tragedies. Those people are just remarkable. [00:25:08][40.4]
Keith: [00:25:09] Yeah, I urge any and everyone to watch it again, probably not in the four hours deep did. That was a pretty emotional night for both of us at the end of that, but it was amazing. So turning gears a little bit, there was another project that you mentioned before we started recording the Everyday Wealth that you're starting to talk a little bit that that's launching in 2022. [00:25:31][21.9]
Soledad: [00:25:32] January 1st. Yeah, okay. Yeah. You know, it's a show. It's a radio show by Edelman Financial, but it's about finance, it's about wealth. And it's not really something that I've done a lot of. I've done a lot of talking about that stuff, but never as sort of a person who's my job on the show really is to ask questions when my parents passed away a couple of years ago. One thing I really realized was the degree to which we were not super prepared for not, you know, I think they were great through retirement, right, they planned out their retirement, they were really good. But old age where it all falls off a cliff. They were not prepared. And by the time you realize it, it's too late. Right. By the time you realize like, Oh geez, I don't think they can stay in that apartment. Yeah. Guess what? You're looking for an apartment the next day, right? And I really wish that I had been and they had been like, I would love to have this conversation. When you're 70, when you're healthy, active, 70 year old, right, where you could be like, Listen, mom, dad, where do you want to live? And if you do want to stay in your house and we can afford it or you can afford it, then maybe the strategy needs to be, do you need a third bedroom if you're going to have a live in aide? If you want to stay in your house at some point, you're going to need an aide, you might need two aides. My parents ended up having to aides because they both were very, very sick in the last year of their lives. Well, in New York City, haveing an apartment, you know, a three-bedroom apartment versus a one-bedroom apartment. Yeah, I mean, that's planning. You know, what kind of a facility are you in? Are you in an apartment building or are you in a house? Are you in a townhouse? Are there stairs? Is there, You know there might be a ramp, but is it a ramp that you can go down by yourself? Do you have a car? When do we get rid of your car? Where do you want to live? What kinds of things do you want to be able to do? I just, you know, my parents were very independent and they pushed back a lot. I wish that I had gotten onto their bank accounts much earlier. I finally did. But it was a lot of work. And so at the time I got in, I think they felt very much. My mom by then had dementia. My dad was pretty ill and taking a lot of care of my mom, and they just really were so worried all the time about being a burden and [00:27:37][125.3]
Keith: [00:27:38] burden on you. [00:27:39][0.8]
Soledad: [00:27:40] Yeah, and on my five brothers and sisters and I would have said, like, but you all know it's a much bigger burden when it comes out of nowhere, right? A bigger burden is being summoned to the E.R. at midnight. You know, a much smaller burden is like, Let's schedule this appointment, okay, I can move stuff around. That's not a huge burden. And by the way, you could have that conversation at 70 where you're like, No, no, it's not a burden. Let's figure out where we want to be, what town, what building, whatever. You know, we just never really thought about it until it was too. By the time we thought about it, it was really it was really, really too late. And then your takeaway keys and you try to get yourself onto bank accounts. And you know, a parent set up was they had an apartment. It just wasn't really set up to, you know, if someone had to be in a wheelchair, which eventually my mom would be in, it just wasn't set up for that. They didn't really have space for a person to come and live in. It just was a mess. It was just a mess. And so we moved them into a like a assisted living facility for the last year and a bit of their lives. But, you know, and even then, it's very like, I'd much rather move somebody when they know where they're going and it's a plan to move them. When there was this, I remember my mom who had terrible dementia by then, just crying. I don't want to go. I don't want to go, I don't want to go. And we're moving her out of her apartment and we took her out to lunch and that we've kind of moved into the new place. And as much as she was completely out of it all the time, she also like, knew very well. She just didn't want to go. It was just terrible, like literally. And so, you know, I really wanted my part of this show to be about like, what's the life you want to lead and not just through 55 or 65 or seventy five? Like, how do you want it to end? Like to have a blunt conversation about like, how do you want to be buried? Where do you want to be? Who comes to the party? Like, is it a party or is it? Is it sad? Is it happy like, I am that person? Here's what I want to do, and I want everybody to be on top of it. And that way, I think you're not a burden. I think everybody's really clear. Otherwise, it did get very, very hard and it was just hard on everybody. [00:29:39][118.9]
Keith: [00:29:39] Yeah, I'll play this part for my mom, like 20 times before she'll say yes to it. But I agree. Yeah. So the dementia thing too, my father in law unfortunately battled with dementia and passed away the same year 2019. And one of the things that just surprised me was how quickly it can deteriorate. It can go from a conversation where, OK, there's a few things off and missed. Oh wow. And there's we've lost him, you know, and I think one of the hardest ones was moving from a house. They moved into a small apartment, and that was where the kind of exposure happened, where, OK, he was kind of getting lost in the house, you know, because there's enough room for him to go kind of vanish for a little bit. And, you know, we were like, Oh, he's OK, he's over there. But now in its closer quarters, we can kind of see some of that stuff. Yeah, yeah. So it's really important. And I'm sorry you had to deal with that. It was they were, what, 40 days apart. [00:30:35][55.6]
Soledad: [00:30:35] Something with my parents died 40 days apart. Oh wow. My dad, before he died, said to my mom, Oh, Estella, I just don't think I can keep this going any longer. And he died, right? And then but I got to be there. I feel so badly for people who lost loved ones during the pandemic. If I had to do that over Zoom, I just don't know what I would have done. Yeah, yeah. And then my mom died and my mom who had dementia. Sometimes it was quite funny because she called me in the middle of the night, Sola. So I'd be like, What's up, mom? Did you hear your father died? Yes, I was actually at his funeral, which I organized. She's like, OK. Just want to make sure, you know, like, OK, mom. Yeah, but you know, but we knew that that either way, one had passed away, the other one was not far behind. They were just very, very interdependent on each other. [00:31:24][49.1]
Keith: [00:31:25] Yeah, I like that you did your mother's accent, but you didn't do your father's. [00:31:27][2.6]
Soledad: [00:31:31] I don't do Australian. I know my limits. I know that's not even a good version of my mother's accent. [00:31:35][3.1]
Keith: [00:31:35] I can't. I'm not allowed to do any accents. I've been told I do. I'm worse than, [00:31:39][3.4]
Soledad: [00:31:39] yeah, that's sort of I think if my husband are going to be like, Yeah, same for you, lady. Stop doing accents. [00:31:44][4.5]
Keith: [00:31:45] Yeah. So I want to do a if it's cool with you, a little rapid fire near the end here because you are one of the more prolific twitterers out there. How do you do it? How do you how do you get these tweets out so fast and crush people like this? Do you have an army behind you that? [00:32:00][14.7]
Soledad: [00:32:00] Oh gosh, I don't think an army helps. I think it kind of slows you down. I think it just, you know, I think I have a very strong point of view on things. And, you know, I try to read all the articles and make sure I know what I'm talking about and a lot of my stuff of media because I worked in the media. I know how this works. It's not like, you know, me going back and forth to some epidemiologist around science. It's not what I do. So I kind of know when when people are faking it or just doing a bad job. [00:32:26][25.6]
Keith: [00:32:27] So the media part of the framing is something I feel like you're providing a masterclass right now in the lab [00:32:31][4.5]
Soledad: [00:32:31] because they're providing a masterclass, and I'm just pointing it out, right? It is amazing to see some of this framing, and it's great because actually, I think it is important for people to understand framing. I think it's [00:32:42][10.2]
Keith: [00:32:42] can you give a little one one-on-one one right here if people aren't following you, you know what Politico does every single day? [00:32:47][4.7]
Soledad: [00:32:47] You know, it's just what is your point of view on a story? I mean, when I first started working in TV news and when I give talks at colleges, I'll mention this. You realize very quickly, OK, everybody always thinks the anchors are like, Oh, they met the anchor of anchor team. But the people who actually have power in the newsroom are the producers. The producers are the ones who are going to decide what stories are covered for the most part. How long are you to cover them for whose voices elevated right, whose voice is not heard? It's a zero-sum game. So as people will often say, No, you tell me what you did in your day and I'll tell you your values, but you can't tell me that you love exercise, and I'm looking at a week of your days and exercises on Wednesday at three o'clock for forty five minutes, right? Clearly, you're telling me one thing, but what you're actually living is different and it's a similar thing in journalism. It's a zero-sum game. You have to make choices. So if the choices that you're making are in your one-hour show elevating which, by the way, is usually about forty-two minutes with commercials, you know, it means that you're giving someone five minutes of your forty-two minutes that you have, who's a liar, who's an established, not someone who's a spinner and who pushes a boundary. Im talking about someone who just lies consistently. I think that I've seen so many times when that happens, so I find that the idea of framing is what's your point of view on a story? There was a great story from NPR this morning that said, you know, new study finds that democracy is in decline. Also, some good news finds says report. You're like, Wait, what? I mean, and when you read the actual article, it's like 90 percent democracy is in decline in the U.S. The decline of democracy in the U.S. is having big impacts on other struggling in places that would like to be democracies or try democracy. So it's had this huge international impact and in the last two paragraphs will look on the bright side. Seven percent more people voted this year. That's a big election year. Also know women got some new seats in Congress. I mean, this is the stupidest headline have ever seen. Democracy is in decline is kind of a big one. Yeah. You know, and so the framing of it is like, you know, there's this, but there's also this versus like here is a serious, serious red flag freaking problem. The news does it all the time, so it's not very hard for me to find things to go crazy over. [00:35:09][141.4]
Keith: [00:35:09] Yeah, one of the more famous ones is the, you know, John Doe struck by bullet in officer involved. Shooting occurred. It just makes everything so passive and it makes you pull the bullet. [00:35:19][9.4]
Soledad: [00:35:20] The aggressive police arrived to the scene. They saw that John Doe seemed to have been struck by a bullet that could have been from an officer who was involved at the scene. Wait, what sounds like a cop shot a guy which you were talking to your friend to be like, Yeah, cop shot a guy. And the fact that the media really again does that and takes it on is is problematic. It really is. [00:35:43][23.0]
Keith: [00:35:43] Yeah, I had a friend describe it, and let me see if I can get this the right way. But just talking about kind of the bias of the media, and it is coming from the objective point of view as a white male point of view. So the news is, and that's right, I know that's right. But the way he said it was, so if it is scary or impacts white people in a negative way, it's going to be shocking and salacious. If it's impacting and hurting black and brown people. It might not get covered. Do you agree with that? [00:36:09][25.8]
Soledad: [00:36:09] I completely agree with that. Well. People love to say that they're objective and you're like, yes, objective to who you are, to the good majority position. I remember doing a documentary called Latino in America and everyone's like, we'll ever talk about questions, you know? So what? The doc should be about this or that? And it's like, Yeah, I think it should be like, you know, who are they and where do they come from? Like, who are we? We. I'm anchoring the doc. We. Latino in America. But yeah, me, I'm like, I'm not they, I'm me. Know? So it's this doc is about we. And they were just people. [00:36:40][30.1]
Keith: [00:36:40] Do people forget that a lot with you? [00:36:41][0.6]
Soledad: [00:36:43] No? I mean, I don't think so. I think it's more that people are just so used to that voice of the otherness. We're right so that the majority is us, and then we're going to do this thing special over there again, as you point out your friends and right, like most, that stuff's not going to get covered. So we've decided that we are going to cover that thing they're doing over there. I didn't think it actually had anything in a way to do with me, but it made me realize that the team was wrong. We had to get rid of the team and we did. I walked upstairs after that meeting and killed the whole project. And we started over again because it was just, I mean, we spent the first few minutes trying to figure out, you know, are Puerto Ricans, Americans? Oh, wow. And I was like, Well, we can Google this. There was one other Latina on the project, and we just I looked her like, You know, you have someone across the room and you're like, Did you just hear that? I think I heard it. They can't. We didn't hear that thing that we thought we just heard. Like that can't be right. You know, again, I was like, This is an important project and we can't have... You wouldn't do a project about Vietnamese chicken farmers and have a whole bunch of people sitting around saying, like, Wow, I've always wanted to do this because I really don't know any. And I've never really been to Vietnam and I I don't even know any chicken farmer. You'd be like, Yeah, you should all go. And that's what we did. We got rid of the team and started over again. [00:37:56][73.0]
Keith: [00:37:57] Well, thank you for doing that because as a Puerto Rican, I've had that often people. The one that I was would get was, you know, when did your family immigrate here? And I'm like, Well, we're American, we're also Puerto Rican and and they're like, Oh. But the one that always got me was, but you know what I mean? [00:38:12][15.7]
Soledad: [00:38:14] So it's the thing that's interesting is like, I do give a lot of, I will say, for people who are not journalists right or who are not on a project like this, like some people just don't know. And actually, I think it is a little confusing at times. I'm not sure I can answer questions about Samoa, but for journalists who are working on a doc called Latino in America, like, that's a really good indication that you should not be on this doc and should not be on the project. [00:38:35][21.4]
Keith: [00:38:36] So maybe a too big of a question, but how fucked are we as a country? [00:38:40][3.9]
Soledad: [00:38:41] Kind of a lot, I think kind of a lot. And I think what's interesting to me is that there just aren't very many consequences. And I think, yeah, money has really kind of become the driving force of everything, right? Money and clicks and marketability. People talk about people being canceled like not even for five minutes. Nobody's canceled. Usually if you get [00:38:59][18.7]
Keith: [00:39:00] You get nominated for Emmys, if you get canceled. [00:39:01][0.8]
Soledad: [00:39:01] Exactly. And people are like people are on TV talking about how they got canceled. So, yeah, the rounds about their new book that they've written about how they got canceled. So yeah, I just think that there's no more a sense of like, wow, that was just not OK. Now it's everything is OK, and that's that's very disappointing. So I think we're pretty fucked. [00:39:17][15.8]
Keith: [00:39:18] Yeah. OK. Thank you for being honest because so many people tell me to read the Constitution when I ask that question. And like, Yeah, I did. I do want to talk about Powherful Foundation and the great work that you're doing there that deserves more airtime and more covers. [00:39:31][12.8]
Soledad: [00:39:31] You have to have me back for another show. [00:39:33][1.4]
Keith: [00:39:34] Well, give us a couple of minutes right now. Sure. When did you start out? [00:39:37][3.0]
Soledad: [00:39:37] Yeah, started after Hurricane Katrina. We kind of thought that, you know, I just was meeting so many, mostly girls who really were trying to figure out what to do. They had nothing. They had no resources. I mean, it was interesting, probably the first time that I met people very close to me that I became very good friends with who had zero options at all. Meaning when I was a student or when I was working at NBC, you know, we all had little jobs. And if you needed something, you had a cousin or a friend or an aunt, you could crash with or a sister or somebody. But it was amazing to me that there was just nothing. They lost everything in Katrina, and there was no relative who wasn't there, who could say, I got you on this. Yeah. So we decided to start this foundation to send girls to and through college. It was amazing. It's been a real blessing. I've really enjoyed it. During the COVID has been very hard because a lot of these girls, we had three parents die. So we were like, Do we? Is that what we do as a foundation? We do. We bury people's parents because that expense fell upon the children to bury their own parents, imagine being in college, having to literally get your parents out of the morgue. So that was stressful. And then also a lot of our students who were living in housing could get access to the food pantry, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, no housing because of COVID, no food pantry. So it was really tough for a lot of our students. But they're great, you know, they're doing really well. We've sent I actually have to get a count of all the students one of these days. I think it's about 40 girls through college. This year will be our 40th and some went on to graduate school and. Thank you, because you've helped us in the past. We certainly appreciate it. It's amazing. I mean, it's just like you just have regular people were like, Oh, I think because we're very tangible, right? It's not a lot of like, there's not a lot of infrastructure. It's basically me and one other person, our director. And you know, it is just like, this person needs money. We're going to help them do this because we're going to clear a path so they can go to college. It's not complicated. And so it's been really it's been a lot of fun to share in their joy, but to help them with papers and navigating complicated situations and sometimes kind of giving a little tough love. We had a young woman who you know that she signed her, signed up for lease and then wanted to get out of that. I'm like, That's like, that's that's not how leases work. It's not like that. But it's been a really great. It's been a really great thing to do. I've enjoyed it. We haven't been able to have our gala for the last couple of years. We haven't been able to do our powerful summits, which we had, like 4000 girls go through. So really fun to do, but you know, with COVID, everything kind of shut down, understandably. What college campus wants an extra three hundred students on their campus? Nobody. So I'm hopeful over the next year or so. [00:42:15][157.7]
Keith: [00:42:16] It's amazing work and I think, you know, you say, put them through college and through two and through to and through college, that's paying their bills. That's actually helping them out so that they don't have hundreds of thousands of student loan debt. [00:42:29][12.9]
Soledad: [00:42:29] Yeh, paying their bills. But also, you know, some of it is even if they had the money. For a lot of people, if you don't have parents who went to college or if you don't have a good support system, you know it's really hard. So it is. Sometimes it's just getting on the phone and talking people, you know, off the ledge of like, I just don't think I belong here. Like, Well, everybody doesn't think they belong here. [00:42:48][18.9]
Keith: [00:42:48] Yeah, exactly. [00:42:48][0.2]
Soledad: [00:42:49] They're like, you never felt that way. I'm like, Oh, girl, sit down. Let me tell you.. We all felt that way. So what are we going to do about it? I mean, a lot of it is just advice and helping navigate and, you know, and just helping people get through. If you don't have a good support system, it can be really hard. [00:43:03][13.8]
Keith: [00:43:04] I totally agree. I tell people, if you don't have imposter syndrome, you're a psychopath because exactly most people need like, that's how we work. So final question and thank you so much for being so generous with your time. [00:43:14][10.2]
Soledad: [00:43:14] It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me. [00:43:16][1.6]
Keith: [00:43:16] I ask everyone at the end not for predictions, but just if we met up this time next year. What do you hope to be most proud of? What's the project that you want to accomplish in the next year? [00:43:25][8.6]
Soledad: [00:43:25] Oh my gosh, that's such a great question. Thank you. You know, I actually what I am working on is doing less, not project wise, because I think Soledad O'Brien Productions will be as busy or more busy. But for me personally, I find as an entrepreneur, you know, you start off being the one who's carrying all the eggs in the basket around and then you have to start delegating. And then if you're really lucky, you get to the point where you just can turn around saying, here are the 10 amazing people who are really overseeing all of this, and I get to dip in where I'm needed. I'd like to get to that stage a little bit. I'd like to spend more time on the foundation, spend more time with the kids. You know, I think we're pretty close to it. So I hope when we meet up next year, one- it should be in-person, two- over a cocktail and three- I'll be like you know what, my calendar is not triple booked and we're sitting here having a cocktail. And if we go over an hour longer than we thought, it will be fine. You know, like we'll just have the time and the space to meet people and live your life and do the things that you want to do. [00:44:22][57.7]
Keith: [00:44:23] A wonderful answer. Thank you so much, and people can find more information on Powerful Foundation and Soledad O'Brien Productions how? [00:44:29][6.1]
Soledad: [00:44:30] we're really mostly on Twitter and Instagram. So everything with me is @Soledad O'Brien and on Instagram, the same. And same with the powherful fdt, which is powherful foundation. [00:44:45][15.2]
Keith: [00:44:47] Soledad O'Brien, thank you so much. It's great seeing you. [00:44:49][2.2]
Soledad: [00:44:49] So nice to see you. Thank you for having me. [00:44:49][0.0]
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