Soledad O'Brien
East 1984
Pride of Smithtown

Soledad is the co-anchor of NBC’s “Weekend Today,” the nation’s top rated weekend news program. Since joining “Today” in July 1999, O’Brien has covered a number of major news stories for NBC News, most recently the Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center from Ground Zero, the Columbine High School shootings, the Pope’s visit to Cuba and the death of John F. Kennedy Jr.

Prior to joining “Weekend Today,” O’Brien anchored MSNBC’s “Morning Blend,” a two-hour news talk show on Saturday and Sunday mornings. She came to MSNBC in 1996 as the host of the Emmy-award winning program, “The Site,” devoted to the technological revolution.

Prior to joining MSNBC, O’Brien was a reporter, and the East Bay Bureau Chief for KRON-TV, the NBC affiliate in San Francisco. For two concurrent seasons, she co-hosted Discovery Channel’s “The Know Zone” for which she won a local Emmy. From 1991 to 1993, O’Brien worked for NBC News in New York, where she produced health and science stories for “NBC Nightly News” and “Today.” She began her career at the then-NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV in Boston as an associate producer and news writer.

O’Brien was named one of America’s “Top 100 Irish People” in 1999, won the “Hispanic Achievement Award in Communication” in 1998, and was named one of People Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” of 2000. She is published in many publications most recently including National Geographic Explorer. The Harvard graduate lives in New York City with her husband, young daughter and is expecting another baby girl this spring.

Soledad O'Brien
Courtesy Soledad O'Brien and NBC

In college, O'Brien planned on a medical career until she interned at Boston's NBC affiliate, WBZ TV, because she also liked to write. "I loved it...I completely changed course and decided I wanted to be a news producer," she says. She held various radio and television jobs, and appeared in front of the camera as the host of The Site when MSNBC debuted in 1996, which won her recognition. In 1999, she took her current job as co-anchor of the weekend edition of the Today Show. Two fan clubs--official and unofficial--chart her life and career on the Web.

O'Brien says hard work has assured her success. As a rookie in the field, she recalls being "egregiously underpaid," so she "milked" every opportunity for what it was worth. "In a lot of ways [the low pay] made me work harder and I got access to producers who were willing to help me, executives who would critique my tape, because I went above and beyond my actual job." The biggest professional risk she took was to switch from a job behind the scenes to one on the air when she joined San Francisco's KRON television station in 1993. "It's critical to tackle things you're not certain you can handle," she advises. "When you mess up, you just have to sit down and figure out what you got out of the negative experience. It's either that or crawl under a rock, right?" O'Brien also found mentors, the first of whom was an anchorwoman who offered an unvarnished look at life in broadcast journalism: "Unfair, difficult, often unrewarding, and high pressure," O'Brien recounts. "Hmmm.... Why did I stay?"

As for balancing life at home and work, the wife--and mother of one, with another child due at the end of March--questions whether it even exists. "I just try to get as much done in a day as I possibly can," she concedes. She has outside help--people who have explicit roles--and sets strict limits on her time. "I don't take calls when I'm putting the baby down. I don't take calls after 9 p.m.," she reports. She works around her young daughter's schedule--writing at night and in the early morning. At work, she delegates tasks more easily than she used to, and assesses what's really important--every day. "When news breaks, I work a ton--it's the nature of my job. But I take my vacations and I take my days off when I can--I never used to do that." Money is important, she warns. As a working mother, "a decent salary is critical. Childcare is so expensive that [working] would not be worth my time if I did not clear a certain number," she asserts. "The lack of good-quality, affordable childcare in this country is unfair to mothers who want to work, but can't afford to without top pay." Although she expects to be compensated fairly, O'Brien still maintains that love for the job comes first: "Being paid well for work you hate will only leave you frustrated."

Best advice? "Hard work will win out every time. Ignore most of the advice that people give you; listen to a handful of trusted mentors. Give a lot of your time and money--I think you pay in the end if you do people wrong along the way."

From Harvard On-line Magazine.