When I took a couple of years to do the documentaries after I left 'American Morning' - what was I gone for, five years? - I didn't feel that I was floating under the radar.
I think what I love about the documentary process is that you bring yourself to the documentary. And hopefully that makes you ask good questions, and hopefully that makes you reveal a little bit about yourself as well.
African-Americans assume I'm named after the notorious Soledad prison or Mount Soledad in California. Latinos want to know if I'm lonely. That doesn't fit, because I grew up with five siblings, and I have four kids of my own, so I'm not lonely at all, though I do often seek solitude, the actual meaning of my name.
When I was 13, I began relaxing my hair, and that meant when I turned 18 it began to crack and fall off, and when I began anchoring, I had short, stubbly pieces of hair. And trying to report in San Francisco with fog meant my hair swelled.
Our goal is to tell people about the International Space Station. I think very rarely people look up 250 miles and think, What are those guys working on, what are those men and women doing at this moment... They're living and doing regular things, but also doing incredible work as well. We really want to bring that to people.
I think of myself as a journalist and a storyteller.
I look forward to beginning a relationship with Al Jazeera America, which has made a commitment to producing quality programming and pursuing underreported stories.
The thing I love about political interviews is, if you're really prepared, you can make great headway because these are the people for whom, theoretically at least, the buck stops.
At screenings for 'Black in America,' I've heard people say, 'Well you know, I never thought you were black until you did Katrina, and then I thought you were black.'
I'm black and Cuban, Australian and Irish, and like most people in America, I'm someone whose roots come from somewhere else. I'm a mixed race, first-generation American.
CNN, a part of the Time Warner company, lives for news about everything and anyone. In the office, the bosses openly discuss the need for a diverse staff and diverse stories, and each time we draw new viewers, the effort intensifies.
As CNN saw our growth in African-American viewership, they affirmed a fundamental truth of news coverage - people will watch you if they see themselves in what you report. It doesn't hurt if the people doing the reporting look like them, too.
We have a foundation, the Soledad O'Brien Starfish Foundation. We send girls to and through college. We started-off saying we send girls to college, but to do so is not enough. Seeing them through college is the key.
I have four relatively small children, and around fourth grade, they start doing big projects on Native Americas: everything is Native Americans in elementary school. Do you know how many Native American dresses I've sewn, on and on; it's a full yearlong study. And then never again. As journalists, we never even cover Native Americans.
When I left 'American Morning' in 2007, I'd focused on doing documentaries. But I thought 'Starting Point' was a great opportunity to be involved in the zeitgeist.
We struck an unusual deal. I'll get to leave CNN with my catalog and documentaries. We were able to create a brand at CNN - 'Black in America' - that I now own. I can take that brand and extend it in any way I want.
I don't know how you can move out of one's socioeconomic category if you don't have education.
Investing in girls can actually move the needle in communities... and can actually benefit boys, because girls are the mothers of boys.
It is truly not fun to be the family that sticks out in an all-white community. On the other side, I have five brothers and sisters; we all look exactly the same, and we're very, very tight. The lessons about race were not pleasant, but there are things that I loved about my childhood.
Stories, as we're taught in journalism school early on, are told through people. Those stories make our documentaries powerful. You can explore someone's culture, you can explore their experience, you can explore an issue through human beings who are going through it.
