Soledad O’Brien is an award-winning documentarian, journalist, speaker, author, philanthropist and founder of Soledad O’Brien Productions, a media production company dedicated to telling empowering and authentic stories on a range of social issues. She anchors and produces Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien, a nationally syndicated Hearst Television public affairs news magazine that reaches 95% of U.S. markets. She was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame in May 2023.
O’Brien has a national impact through her podcasts, social media, speeches and books, including her critically acclaimed memoir The Next Big Story and her 1.3 million followers on X. She gave Congressional testimony on media disinformation and has anchored shows and specials on CNN, MSNBC, Nat Geo, BET, ABC, and CBS, co-anchored NBC’s Weekend Today, and reported for PBS NewsHour and HBO Real Sports.
Her most recent projects include her top-rated iHeart podcast Who Killed JFK with Rob Reiner and her documentary The End of Affirmative Action. She is the Executive Producer of the Peabody-Award-winning documentary The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and the multi-part series Black and Missing, which won the Independent Spirit and NAACP awards. She also works with major foundations, like the Ford Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to produce impactful documentaries on topics like hunger, race and education.
O’Brien’s work has been recognized with four Emmy awards, three times with the George Foster Peabody Award, four times with the Gracie Award, which honors women in media, twice with Cine Awards for her work in documentary films, twice with Telly Awards and with an Alfred I. DuPont Award.
She runs the PowHERful Foundation with her husband, helping dozens of young women get to and through college while also connecting thousands more with resources through regional mentoring conferences.