CNN Anchor and Special Correspondent Soledad O’Brien to Speak at Yale

Published: October 27, 2009

New Haven, Conn. — Soledad O’Brien, anchor and special correspondent for CNN Worldwide, will visit Yale as a guest of the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism on Tuesday, November 10.

O’Brien’s lecture, “Diversity in the Media: Behind the Scenes & in Our Lives,” will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Levinson Auditorium of Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street. The event is free and open to the public. Doors will open at 5:00 p.m.

Since joining CNN in 2003, O’Brien has reported breaking news from around the globe and has produced award-winning documentaries on important contemporary issues. She also covers political news as part of CNN’s “Best Political Team on Television.”

O’Brien’s most recent projects include documentaries such as CNN Presents: Latino in America, which premiered October 21 and 22, 2009, and CNN Presents: Black in America.

For CNN’s Hurricane Katrina coverage, O’Brien’s reports on the storm’s impact included an in-depth interview with former FEMA chief Michael Brown. Her Children of the Storm project and One Crime at a Time documentary demonstrate O’Brien’s continued commitment to covering stories out of New Orleans. O'Brien was part of the team that earned CNN a George Foster Peabody award for its Katrina coverage.

In December 2004, she was among a handful of CNN anchors sent to Thailand to report on the aftermath of the disastrous tsunami. She received an Alfred I. duPont Award for her coverage of the tsunami. She also reported on the London terrorism attacks in July 2005.

In 2008, O’Brien was the first recipient of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Goodermote Humanitarian Award for reporting on Hurricane Katrina and the Southeast Asia tsunami.

Her many other accolades include a Gracie Allen Award in 2007 for her reporting from Cyprus on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict as well as her reports from the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. She also won an Emmy for her work as a co-host on Discovery Channel’s The Know Zone. In 2005, O’Brien was awarded the Hispanic Heritage Vision Award, considered one of the highest honors for Hispanic Americans. The NAACP honored her with its President’s Award in 2007 for her humanitarian efforts and journalistic excellence.

O’Brien was also included in the “40 under 40” features in Crain’s Business Reports, Essence magazine and Black Enterprise. She has been named several times to Irish American Magazine’s “Top 100 Irish Americans” and in 2006 was featured in Newsweek’s cover story “15 People Who Make America Great.” In 2007, she received the first annual “Soledad O’Brien Freedom’s Voice Award,” created in her honor by Community Voices at the Morehouse School of Medicine.

O’Brien is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is a graduate of Harvard University.

The Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale was established by Nelson Poynter, who received his master’s degree from Yale in 1927. The fellowship brings to campus journalists who have made significant contributions to their field. Recent Poynter fellows include Tom Brokaw, David Brooks, Al Franken, Tom Friedman, Ira Glass, Riz Khan, Charlie Rose, Margaret Warner, Michael Wilbon, Judy Woodruff and Bob Woodward.

Media wishing to cover the event must register in advance with the Yale Office of Public Affairs. No later than Tuesday, November 3, please send an email with your name, affiliation, and telephone number to kianti.roman@yale.eduOrganizations wishing to send more than one representative should send a single email with the required information for all individuals who will be covering the event.

PRESS CONTACT: Kianti Roman 203-432-8055