CNN’S O’Brien stresses diversity in newsroom

CNN’s American morning Co-Anchor Soledad O’Brien spoke to the students, faculty, staff and visitors of Pembroke on Sept. 23. The message of the newswoman’s speech was simple – diversity matters. “Diversity is a topic that’s important to me both personally and professionally,” O’Brien said.O’Brien, whose full name means “blessed virgin Mary of solitude,” is the daughter of a black Cuban mother and an Australian father, whose parents hail from Ireland. She and her five brothers and sisters were raised in New York because their parents had to leave the South due to racial conditions in the mid-1900s.The Harvard University graduate stressed the importance of diversity, noting that the term did not necessarily denote black and white.”When we talk about diversity, that means all colors, all races, all cultures, and all sexual preferences,” said O’Brien. O’ Brien began her broadcasting career at WBZ-TV in Boston as a production assistant. She quickly rose in the ranks of broadcast television- becoming a reporter for KRON in San Francisco, hosting a show on the Discovery Channel, co-anchoring the “Weekend Today Show,” and, finally, signing a contract with the Cable News Network, or CNN, to co-anchor American Morning.”My job defines diversity,” O’Brien said. “One day I’m interviewing the president, the next I’m eating sushi and covering a bobsled race.”O’Brien said that she’s faced situations throughout her career in which news directors said she wasn’t black enough to meet their needs, or they wanted her to change her name so as not to confuse the audience on her ethnicity. Then there were times when talent in competing markets contributed her success to affirmative action.”You can go nuts on someone and try to make them read your resume, or you can do a good job,” said O’Brien. “To fight some battles is completely irrelevant to your success,” she added. “It takes you off your path. The world is full of morons, who will remain morons no matter how much you fight.”