Soledad O’Brien Biography
Soledad O’Brien is an American broadcast journalist and executive producer who is best known for hosting Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, a nationally syndicated weekly talk show produced by Hearst Television. She is the chairwoman of Starfish Media Group, a multiplatform media production company, and distributor that she founded in 2013.
Soledad is also a member of the Peabody Awards board of directors, which is presented by the University of Georgia’s Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Between 2003-2007, she co-anchored CNN’s American Morning and was the anchor of CNN’s morning news program Starting Point from 2012 to 2013. In 2013, O’Brien became a special correspondent on the Al Jazeera news program America Tonight. She is also a correspondent on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.
Soledad O’Brien Age
O’Brien is 57 years old as of 2023. She was born on September 19, 1966, in St. James, New York, the United States of America. Her birth name is María de la Soledad Teresa O’Brien.
Soledad O’Brien Family | Parents
O’Brien is the daughter of Edward Ephrem O’Brien and Estela O’Brien. Edward was a mechanical engineering professor at Stony Brook University while Estela was a French and English teacher at Smithtown High School West. They both died in 2019.
Her parents are immigrants, her father comes from Toowoomba, Queensland, in Australia while her mother is from Havana, Cuba, and is of Afro-Cuban descent.
In addition, she has five siblings; law professor Maria Hylton (born 1960), GE corporate lawyer Cecilia Vega (born 1961), businessman Tony O’Brien (born 1962), who heads a documents company, eye surgeon Estela Ogiste (born 1964), and anesthesiologist Orestes O’Brien (born 1967).
Soledad O’Brien Husband
O’Brien has been married to Bradley Raymond since 1995. They are blessed with four children. She currently lives with her husband and four children in Manhattan.
Soledad O’Brien Children
O’Brien and Raymond have four children namely; Sofia Elizabeth Raymond, Charles Raymond, Cecile Raymond, and Jackson Raymond.
Soledad O’Brien Education
O’Brien attended Smithtown High School East and later graduated in 1984. She then joined Radcliffe College starting 1984 to 1988 taking pre-med and English and American literature. However, she left college to take a job at WBZ-TV. She later went back to school while pregnant with her firstborn and received her degree in English and American Literature from Havard University in 2000.
Soledad O’Brien Career
Soledad had her first job in journalism as a medical reporter on WXKS-FM in Boston due to her background as a pre-med student in college. She then shifted to WBZ-TV, the then NBC affiliate in Boston where she worked as an associate producer and news writer
In 1991, she joined NBC News, based in New York as a field producer for the Nightly News and Weekend Today. She then worked for three years as a local reporter and bureau chief for San Francisco NBC affiliate KRON. She also worked as a reporter on “The Know Zone”.
From the springtime of 1996 through November 1997, Soledad hosted MSNBC’s weekend morning show and the cable network’s technology program The Site, which aired weeknights. Soledad worked as a reporter and anchor on a number of shows till 1999, including MSNBC’s Morning Blend and NBC News’ Weekend Today, despite the fact that the Site was canceled one year later. She was later promoted to Weekend Today’s permanent co-anchor.
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In 2003, Soledad left NBC to join CNN as the co-anchor of the network’s flagship program, American Morning. In 2007, she moved to CNN’s documentary vision, working on Special Investigations Unit and In America. From 2007 to 2013, she hosted a number of CNN documentary shows including the Black in America series, the Latino in America series, and numerous Special Investigations Unit episodes.
Between 2012 and 2013, she anchored CNN’s Starting Point and in 2013, she established the Starfish Media Group production company. This establishment has produced segments for CNN, HBO, and Al Jazeera America. She was also hired by Al Jazeera America in 2013 as a special correspondent to the network’s America Tonight.
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Soledad has authored two books Latino in America, and the 2010 memoir, The Next Big Story: My Journey through the Land of Possibilities. Moreover, she and her husband founded the Soledad O’Brien and Brad Raymond Starfish Foundation. Soledad is also a member of the board of directors of The After-School Corporation, the Harlem School of the Arts, and the Foundation for the National Archives.
In her career, O’Brien has received several awards including the Emmy, the George Foster Peabody Award, the NAACP’s President’s Award, an Alfred I. du Pont Award, and the Gracie Allen Award. In 2008, Soledad was the first recipient of the Soledad O’Brien Freedom’s Voice Award from the Morehouse School of Medicine. Moreover, she was the first recipient of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Goodermote Humanitarian Award.
She further received the 2009 Medallion of Excellence for Leadership and Community Service Award from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. In 2010, Soledad was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists.
Soledad O’Brien Net Worth
O’Brien has an estimated net worth of between $8 million and $10 million. In addition, she reportedly receives an annual salary of about $3 million.