00:00:49.980If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:00:55.400Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:01:04.060Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.
00:03:35.960Thank you. Thank you. That's so sweet. I appreciate that.
00:03:38.320Now, you may know Soledad O'Brien as an iconic journalist who has earned multiple Emmys and Peabody Awards for her coverage ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the BP oil spill.
00:03:49.480But my earliest memory of her goes back even further to a short-lived but way ahead of its time tech news show about the emerging Internet revolution.
00:03:59.340It was called The Sight, and it aired on the early days of MSNBC, a network I would later go on to work for myself, in no small part inspired by Soledad O'Brien.
00:04:11.540Now, if you didn't catch the show, it was truly something.
00:04:15.700Soledad's co-host was a virtual reality character named Dev Null, voiced by real-life tech journalist Leo Laporte.
00:04:23.860And they would sit around in an animated espresso bar talking about the internet.
00:04:28.620Now, in case you can't tell, this was the 90s, 1996 to be exact,
00:04:33.160long before newsrooms were covering the internet the way they do now.
00:04:37.220Soledad became one of the earliest mainstream voices,
00:04:40.240explaining this new digital world just as it was also taking shape.
00:04:44.020And for 12-year-old Bridget, just beginning to explore the internet, it was a very big deal.
00:04:50.900I was talking to my producer as I was prepping for this, and he was like,
00:04:54.320I don't know that I've ever seen you nervous to speak to anybody before.
00:04:57.260what's going on. And I thought back and I realized I had a memory of watching one of your early shows
00:05:04.160with my parents who were big news junkies. Do you remember the show that you did, The Sight,
00:05:08.820on MSNBC? Yes. Were you one of the six people who watched that show? Thank you. I'm going to send
00:05:13.820you a fruit basket. Yes, thank you. My parents were the kind of people who always had MSNBC
00:05:18.100on in the background. And I loved that you had like a, you know, I was young when it was on,
00:05:23.140But I loved that there was like a virtual host.
00:05:26.560And so that was a show that I remember very clearly watching.
00:05:29.560And part of me wonders if I'd even be doing tech media, tech journalism today, if not
00:05:33.640for these memories of watching that show when I was young.
00:05:37.320When we did that, that was Leo Laporte, who was basically in a, I don't even know what
00:05:42.300you would call it, a suit that you basically had stickers, right?
00:05:45.860You would capture a motion capture suit.
00:05:47.560And then part of the show, the six people who watched it would know that we would do a Q&A.
00:05:54.540And then we always had to do Retraction Monday because you'd get stuff so wrong.
00:05:57.980We'd be like, and it's Retraction Monday where we have to take back some of the stuff Deb Null was the name of the character got wrong.0.54
00:06:06.840And and then he would just he was just ridiculous.
00:06:09.560We often had to like I just had to like unplug him all the time.
00:06:13.140the site really was on the cutting edge of so much in tech and media even in the way that the
00:06:19.880show came to an end when princess diana died a night that i vividly remember because my mother
00:06:26.140was obsessed with her the show was preempted for live breaking coverage of her death this was
00:06:32.300before the news looked and functioned the way it does now with 24-hour rolling updates and constant
00:06:38.060on-air coverage. In that moment, the network recognized that continuous live coverage was
00:06:43.960the direction news and media was heading, and the site quietly slipped off the air as that new era
00:06:48.800began. The site, very much cutting edge, right, on MSNBC in an era before cable news became round
00:06:56.720the clock breaking. The minute Princess Diana died, that's when the switch happened, where
00:07:01.920suddenly everybody wanted updates really by the minute. They needed to have rolling news all the
00:07:07.900time when there was a breaking news story. And that's not really how cable had been, which is
00:07:11.400kind of interesting. And so the site launched with MSNBC in 1996. But we only lasted about a year and
00:07:19.760a bit because, you know, with just the format, which was taped, which it took us, you know,
00:07:25.780we were using modems, right? 58 a.m. to do a tech show. So sometimes we have to like let stuff
00:07:32.780download and go out to lunch. And it would take us an entire day to shoot a one hour show. And I
00:07:38.680remember when people said, you know, can you do six days a week of shows? I was like, oh my God,
00:07:43.320I don't think so. Like, I just do not think so. But of course, you look back now and you think
00:07:47.700technology, of course, so much to report on, so much to talk about. And yeah, I think we did get
00:07:51.940a lot of people and hopefully a lot of women and young women kind of interested in tech because
00:07:56.520my approach was that I'm not a technologist. I'm just like a person and I was interested in
00:08:02.160leveraging it for my use. And I thought that was kind of an interesting POV versus other folks who
00:08:07.780were very into, you know, they were coders, they were computer science majors, they really knew a
00:08:12.820lot about tech. They wrote a lot about tech. And I was just like, I would just like this to enhance
00:08:17.540my life. I would like to figure out how to use a website. I would like to figure out how to build
00:08:21.640a website. I would like to connect with ancestry.com and find long-last relatives. And it
00:08:27.340was a little more news you could use, I think. That's exactly the sort of orientation that we
00:08:32.180come at with our show, There Are No Girls on the Internet. So much tech reporting and tech media1.00
00:08:37.600either focuses on people who are super techie, right? Like, I know the latest. I have the latest.
00:08:42.740I'm already totally in that world. Or it's kind of coming at it from a business perspective. What
00:08:47.840are these companies doing? What is OpenAI doing? What is X doing? And it really leaves out this
00:08:52.920big group of people who are using tech every day are probably tech literate digital natives,
00:08:59.260but there's not really tech media and tech stories that are really aimed at them if they
00:09:04.460don't consider themselves techies, if they didn't, you know, get an engineering degree or something
00:09:08.340like that. And I do think that we should be making tech media and all kinds of media that
00:09:13.760really gets at that group and says, hey, even if you're not a techie, even if you're not a coder,
00:09:18.260you still have a story to tell about how technology shapes and shows up in your life.
00:09:22.300And this is the bulk of the people, right? I mean, the thing, if you're looking at like a pie chart, these are most of the people are not coders and they're not people who are going to be investing in AI startups, right? These are people who are going to try to figure out how it's going to impact them and how they're going to use it. So I completely agree with you on that. And I think the news sometimes falls short. A lot of news coverage of tech, right? Is your child cheating with AI versus, you know, what are the really interesting things that you can do with AI?
00:09:50.620And so I feel like the news doesn't really go far enough. So I love that you do this show, because I do think you need a lane for people who want to kind of embrace the technology, but don't necessarily understand it fully.
00:10:03.200Soledad is the executive producer of the documentary The Perfect Neighbor, which tells the story of the tragic death of A.J. Owens, a devoted mother of four in Ocala, Florida, who was shot and killed by her neighbor, Susan Lawrence.
00:10:16.220Susan was that kind of neighbor, the one everyone in the community knew to avoid.
00:10:22.700She called 911 over and over again to file complaints about the neighborhood kids, including AJs,
00:10:29.020who were simply playing or maybe being a bit loud in the grassy shared space near all of their homes.
00:10:35.780Susan would hurl slurs at the children and even throw objects at them.
00:10:40.560Police officers would show up, talk quietly amongst themselves,
00:10:44.060and leave with the impression that something was off about Susan.
00:10:47.660But even after all those visits, nothing really changed.
00:10:51.940Everything escalated when AJ knocked on Susan's door to confront her about taking her son's iPad.
00:10:58.620Susan fired a gun through her locked steel door, killing AJ,
00:11:02.460and would later claim that she feared for her life.
00:11:06.480The Perfect Neighbor has sparked widespread discussion online,
00:11:09.800and renewed scrutiny of so-called stand your ground laws, how they function in practice,
00:11:14.700and the real impact they have on communities. I've wanted to talk to you for the longest,
00:11:20.420for most of my life, but the thing that made me want to reach out to you was watching
00:11:25.920the new documentary on Netflix that you made with director Gita Gondwir, The Perfect Neighbor.
00:11:31.960I don't know that I've, one, had a reaction to a documentary like this before, and two,
00:11:37.300seen a reaction to a documentary like this before, and I watch a lot of documentaries.
00:11:41.960I know this is a story that you've been following since it first happened.
00:11:45.380What was it about this story that you were drawn to?
00:11:47.560Yeah, from our perspective, I mean, as a journalist, right, that's a story that crosses
00:11:51.280what we would say the wires, although they're not really wires, but you read about it and
00:11:55.540you just think, oh, my gosh, this is a horrible stand your ground case.
00:11:58.620I've covered a lot of those stand your ground case in Ocala, Florida, which is about four
00:12:03.900So for Gita, it turned out that her husband's family was was friendly with the woman who was the victim.
00:12:13.200Wow. So A.J. Owens was was, you know, one of those such a close friend, almost considered like family.
00:12:18.960We're all family. And so I think what she has said is that when this happened, she was just like, what do we do?
00:12:26.000You know, she's a filmmaker. We're journalists.
00:12:28.520Rose R.C. is my producer and I. So we're big in, you just go, go, just send someone, go,
00:12:35.140start covering it. And so I think once that police body cam footage became something that
00:12:43.320had been gathered from the lawyers, right? This became, it was a criminal case, became gathered
00:12:47.900from the lawyers. Suddenly you realize like this could be a really interesting vehicle to tell the
00:12:54.000story. The editor is a young woman named Viridiana Lieberman, and she's fantastic. And Gita laughs
00:13:01.220about how at one point, you know, in the film, when you have everybody coming to the scene of
00:13:05.760the ultimate crime, there's like 20 police. So keep in mind, everyone has a body cam, 20 body
00:13:12.580cams. No one's actually shooting, right? They're just capturing. And the editor has to sort of
00:13:17.840sort through off of a giant disc or all this has just been dropped and figure out what matches
00:13:23.440with what? How do you put it together to tell a story? So it's really a tremendous feat. I mean,
00:13:29.120Gita obviously is a fantastic editor and just everything she does is fabulous. And Viri,
00:13:35.060as the director, also just really fantastic work. So The Perfect Neighbor is not your typical
00:13:42.440documentary. There are no talking heads, no narrator guiding you through the story. Instead,
00:13:48.480everything unfolds through raw surveillance, police body cam video, security footage,
00:13:54.540interrogation room recordings. It creates this unsettling, unblinking view of the case,
00:14:00.660showing everything from the immediate aftermath of the murder itself to the disturbing reality
00:14:05.440of AJ's killer simply living her life and moving in with family instead of being arrested.
00:14:11.400We aren't told what happened. We see it. And that makes it all the more chilling.
00:14:17.120Do you have any sense of how the decision was made that the film was going to be almost entirely constructed through that kind of surveillance footage, whether it's body cam footage or the ring camera footage that we see?
00:14:29.060Yeah, I think generally you always start with, well, so how do we do this?
00:14:31.800And I think for Geeta, and she's talked about this, that, you know, once it became clear that you could almost do it as a thriller, right?
00:14:39.640It actually reads as a true crime story.
00:14:44.320And even though you start with the ending and then you backtrack, you actually it unfolds like a thriller.
00:14:51.560And Gita is also an editor herself. That's how she got her start.
00:14:55.600So I think she really saw it that way. And once you had the body cam footage, I think it really helped to do something that as reporters we never do.
00:15:04.280Right. Whenever there's a stand your ground case and I've covered a handful of them, you go in the aftermath.
00:15:10.220Right. You interview people in the aftermath and you pick and choose who when it's the police POV. It's not my POV. It's not Gita's POV. It's not Mary's POV. Right. This is just from body cam. And so I think it gives you a really interesting perspective that a lot of people have said to me they felt like it was much more true that they didn't they didn't doubt like, oh, is this a spin?
00:15:33.040because the police were not shooting for us or anybody.
00:16:26.840You might get right-wing talking heads on TV,
00:16:29.560But the film really, to me, kind of demonstrates what it would actually look like.
00:16:35.580All of the heartbreaking, horrifying details of what these cases would actually look like.
00:16:41.300And I wonder, do you feel that that was an argument that was trying to be made in this film of like, oh, people think that you should be able to stand your ground.
00:16:49.020And if you feel threatened, you should be able to shoot anybody through a closed door.
00:16:53.460This is what it would actually look like if that was the case.
00:16:55.680I think it's always important to show things as they are, right? I mean, for me, documentaries are about getting in there and saying, this is actually what it is. This is how it unfolded. This is the ridiculously small incident that really kept spiraling and spiraling and spiraling, right?
00:17:12.240It's it's this is this is what exactly happened and you can see it.
00:17:17.720And so to me, I think that's really important.
00:17:20.540It allows you to sort of help people, again, see not in the aftermath, but is unfolding what exactly is happening.
00:17:27.340And I don't think people really, you know, I don't.
00:17:29.600Someone's asked me the other day, you know, do you think you'll help people change their mind on Stand Your Ground?
00:17:33.800I was like, I think most people don't really even know what Stand Your Ground really is.
00:17:37.340They don't necessarily know it's a law, you know, but it's different in different states.
00:17:41.580But most people don't really know exactly what it is. And so for me, I think it's a really helpful way to understand that this woman is not arrested, right, after there is a shooting. She kills her neighbor. She shoots through her locked door. There's no guess about who did it, right? There's nobody trying to figure out, oh my God, who was the perpetrator? And yet, she gets picked up by her family and she goes away. She's not in jail.
00:28:15.380Investigators later discovered that Susan had Googled Stand Your Ground laws before the shooting,
00:28:21.360suggesting that she wasn't actually fearing for her life,
00:28:24.540but rather setting up the killing by researching exactly how to frame her defense.
00:28:30.720What do you think about the conversation that we're currently having about things like Stand Your Ground laws?
00:28:35.220Just recently, there was that horrible situation in Indiana where a cleaner came to the wrong house,
00:28:40.620knocked on the door and when she knocked on it a man shot and killed her through the shut door
00:28:45.760and the case was expected to test stand your ground laws in indiana but ultimately that man
00:28:50.800was charged because prosecutors were like listen shooting somebody through a shut door simply
00:28:55.360because they knocked on it does not meet the requirements for stand your ground even if that
00:28:59.920person thought well i'm defending my home because this person knocked on my door and i don't know
00:29:05.300I just think that the conversation around crime has gotten so out of control that when these things happen, frankly, I don't expect people to take a step back and say, well, wait a minute.
00:29:15.980Should we have a culture where it's normalized and OK to just shoot through a door and ask questions later?
00:29:22.240It's crazy. And again, there have been so many of these stories, right?
00:29:25.140You and I could tick off probably just off the top of our heads without even having to Google it.
00:29:29.640five or six recent cases where someone's been shot or killed or both, you know, because of
00:29:36.400someone claiming stand your ground. And I think that person who does it feels justified, right?
00:29:42.360They feel like I can protect my home. And if I feel even slightly afraid, even if it's just
00:29:46.740someone pulling into the wrong driveway, even if it's someone looking for the wrong house,
00:29:50.460even if it's someone who's just gone to the wrong place accidentally, I am justified in0.99
00:29:55.120shooting that person and killing that person. So yeah, it's bizarre, right? I think it's crazy0.98
00:29:59.800that we've gotten here and what you really see. And there's a slide at the end of the documentary
00:30:03.840that points out, you know, the people who really suffer from stranger ground laws are people of
00:30:08.480color. You know, those are the people who, I don't have any proof for this, but I am very confident1.00
00:30:14.900that if Susan had been a black woman and she had shot a white lady through her locked door,0.92
00:30:20.400she would have been arrested on the spot right there was good there was no question who did it
00:30:25.600they weren't looking for the shooter the idea that she was able to be free is obviously you
00:30:31.280see in the film what sets everybody and just uh you know off and and and makes them very angry
00:30:36.960about what potentially could happen and so the family and the neighbors have to really start
00:30:41.460marching and calling attention to the crime because it could just like others you know
00:30:46.900become that salacious talking head football that at some point stops being focused on the case and
00:30:55.160starts being focused on the chaos. The reaction to the film has been intense. One moment that's
00:31:02.200been particularly talked about online is a harrowing scene where AJ's children break down
00:31:07.340after learning that their mother has been killed. Honestly, it is one of the most gut-wrenching
00:31:12.520things I have ever seen on screen. It was a tragedy. And the way AJ's family has responded
00:31:18.760echoes the tragedy of Emmett Till. In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was falsely accused
00:31:25.940of whistling at a white woman while visiting family in Mississippi. He was lynched and brutally
00:31:31.540mutilated. His mother, Mamie Till, made the courageous and history-altering decision to hold
00:31:38.280an open casket funeral, saying that she wanted the world to see what had happened for themselves,
00:31:43.940saying, there was just no way I could describe what was in that box. No way. And I just wanted
00:31:49.740the world to see. Photos of Emmett Till's body were published in Black publications like Jet
00:31:54.900and the Chicago Defender, sparking national and international outrage. One photograph from Jet
00:32:01.600showing Mamie Till at the funeral, standing over her son's mutilated corpse, was named by Time as
00:32:07.380one of the 100 most influential images of all time. It ran with the caption, quote,
00:32:13.380for almost a century, African Americans were lynched with regularity and impunity.0.98
00:32:18.240Now, thanks to a mother's determination to expose the barbarousness of this crime,0.99
00:32:23.560the public could no longer pretend to ignore what they couldn't see.
00:32:27.560So while the scene of AJ's children learning about their mother's murder is deeply harrowing,
00:32:32.700it was included because AJ's family wanted the truth to be told.
00:32:36.300for everyone to see for themselves, just like Mamie Till.
00:32:41.240The scene that, I don't know if I'll ever stop thinking about it,
00:32:46.020the scene when we see AJ's children being informed that their mom has been killed.
00:32:51.620I mean, I had to stop the movie to sob because I was unable to continue watching.
00:32:58.400I've never seen a scene quite like that.
00:33:01.060I've seen some folks say, like, oh, this was too much.
00:33:03.620we as the audience should not have been led into a moment like that?
00:33:38.160So it really did come with the permission, if you will, of the family.
00:33:42.760Number two, I think that off of that, this is a documentary about a killing.
00:33:49.640And I don't think it's fair to do a documentary about a killing and then say, but actually, we're not going to get to the killing.
00:33:55.780I just think the way A.J. died was horrible.
00:34:00.180And I think the audience needs to understand the impact on her children, on the community, on everything is palpable.
00:34:08.320And I think people have to understand that. And I don't know that it's it's a good thing to clean that up, to say this part's kind of hard to watch.
00:34:16.660So, you know what? We're just going to clean this up for you. I don't I don't think so.
00:34:21.520I don't. This doc is about a killing and about a really terrible policy that causes great harm to people of color.
00:34:28.400And I think that the being the general public being really removed from what this policy actually translates into the real world harm on children, on moms, on communities, on families.
00:34:42.080I think people do need to see that to understand.
00:34:45.780Like it is a public policy decision or conversation in addition to being like a like a personal conversation.
00:34:53.340Absolutely. And also it's this is a documentary about a killing.
00:34:57.240a horrible killing and we get to see the before the middle and the after and the aftermath and so
00:35:05.140i think it would be a very weird decision to sort of say no no no this part we're not going to show
00:35:11.280yeah and as you said i think it should be made clear that the family wants this story told the
00:35:17.420family is out there they they they her surviving family members are adamant about this story being
00:35:23.840told. And I don't know, part of me feels like it's a way like honoring their wishes is important.
00:35:29.200Honoring that legacy is important. Yeah, I think it'd be very different if they said, oh, absolutely.
00:35:34.280You know, please don't. I think that would lead to very challenging conversations, frankly. Right.
00:35:40.700I think you'd have people who said, listen, we should honor the family. Other people say, hey,
00:35:43.800this is a story about a killing and try to figure it out. But no, the family was very much, I think,
00:35:49.360on board with the idea of like people need to see how horrible this is. They need to see the
00:35:53.280impact. There's also an impact campaign. It's called Standing in the Gap. I don't know if you've
00:35:56.720known about that. And, you know, because, again, something people don't realize. Once the press
00:36:01.240goes, once the pastors go, once the lawyers go, you have families that are hurting, that actually
00:36:07.740need support, right? They're just left. And so I think, like, being very clear and true and accurate
00:36:16.600about that is very important. And keeping the conversation going, you know, once the film
00:36:23.180is no longer, you know, the thing everyone is talking about, making sure that that conversation
00:36:28.320can continue and that we continue to educate folks on what these laws actually look like and the way
00:36:34.080that they actually impact people. Right. And who they impact the most. You know, you used to be
00:36:39.080this journalist who was really known for anchoring mainstream news outlets like CNN. But more
00:36:44.940recently, you're making these important documentaries through your production company and the production
00:36:49.460companies of others like Gita's, do you feel like you have more freedom to tell stories in a
00:36:55.480different way, the way that you maybe, you know, couldn't if you were still anchoring mainstream
00:37:00.360news outlets? I think the real difference is that you just get a lot of time. So if you're able to
00:37:07.580sell a doc and you get a buyer and you have a good story and you, you know, you're sort of
00:37:11.220able to go ahead and produce the doc, you know, you get to really kind of wrap a lot of time
00:37:17.860around a story. Whereas in daily news, as you know, you know, you're just nonstop talking,
00:37:24.400talking, talking, talking. You might have a little bit of time to kind of give some context,
00:37:27.520but often you don't, especially in live cable news. And so I, what I've liked, I mean,
00:37:32.560I love doing cable news, but I really have liked the time. You know, you're not giving people a
00:37:37.22010 second soundbite and saying, you know, here, let me explain the story to you. Here's their
00:37:41.240soundbite. They're, they're giving that right. We get to tell the entire story over a fairly
00:37:46.620long period of time. So you really understand the context. And I think in cases where as people
00:37:52.980don't trust journalists as much, you know, day after day, we're looking at a Pew research study
00:37:58.560that I said something like 44% of Americans say they don't trust journalists, a terrible number.
00:38:04.640I like the idea of being out of it. Just, you know, like we're not in it. There's no, I'm not
00:38:11.760in the middle of it saying, here's my perspective on this story. And I met with these people,
00:38:15.260right? It's just, this is how it went down with the police who were called to the scene.
00:38:20.340And so I think that's actually really part of the reason the film is doing so well is that
00:38:24.900people believe it. You know, they just don't think there's an agenda. There's no, here's how I feel
00:38:30.940about it. Here's how Gita feels about it. Here's how message pictures feels about it, right? It's,
00:38:35.640this is what happened and we're going to show it to you fully. So I think that's a real plus.
00:38:41.580And it goes back to what you were saying about the choice to use a lot of or mostly police surveillance footage and ring camera footage and interrogation footage that those the facts speak for themselves.
00:38:52.940Right. We see you. You weren't it's not like Gita was there on the site with cameras filming a story for a certain perspective.
00:39:01.340It's just what happened. And there's not really no one can say like, ah, this seems like women of color were biased for a certain perspective here.
00:39:13.760Case in point, one of Soledad's latest projects is a new short documentary called The Devil is Busy, now streaming on HBO Max.
00:39:22.040The film follows a day in the life of Tracy, the head of security at a Georgia abortion clinic, and the relentless work that she does to keep the clinic operating safely.
00:39:32.820We watched Tracy begin her day at the clinic with a prayer,
00:39:36.380navigate confrontations with anti-abortion protesters0.77
00:39:39.060who are such a constant presence at the clinic
00:42:46.680But again, I think she can do that because she has a lot of support
00:42:49.520and a lot of people who are working on these projects with her who she trusts implicitly.
00:42:54.020But we started working on a project actually about young people who are hungry in college.
00:42:58.220We had met this woman, a friend who ran the journalism department at a school,
00:43:04.160and she said, you know, some of the students are sleeping in the journalism office.
00:43:09.980And she thought they were just kind of like crashing there on a late night,
00:43:12.840but they actually had no housing, that they were hungry.0.70
00:43:15.700And another woman did a study. She's kind of the center of our doc, Sarah Goldgraab. And she was saying that, you know, originally when she did her study, she thought it was kind of like the sad story of a handful of students who are just in a terrible 50 percent, five zero percent of students have had food insecurity in college.
00:43:37.160Like, that's insane. And so we decided to do that project. And I think Gita's strategy in telling that story was it just it just made for a beautiful, beautiful doc.
00:43:46.700So, you know, every single thing that we have done together has just been a home run.
00:43:51.880I don't know. Thinking about some of the projects that I know that you all have worked on together, I've obviously seen The Perfect Neighbor.
00:43:57.520I've seen The Devil is Busy. It strikes me as the kind of topics that are so important that definitely impact traditionally marginalized people.
00:44:05.840So subsequently, they're not told, you know, the way that they maybe should be.
00:44:12.340Yeah, I used to say that all the time.
00:44:14.480Someone would say to me, you know, when we started doing our Black in America documentaries for CNN, we done for about nine, nine or 10 years.
00:44:20.920And I would just say, you know, what I liked about it was you just didn't run into people.
00:44:24.580You know, that that JonBenet Ramsey, it was me and 99 other reporters, you know, doing the 10 year anniversary of the murder of this poor little girl.
00:44:33.100But when it comes to these complicated social issues, you know, often you're just out there alone reporting them, which is unfortunate because I think they're really important.
00:45:57.920But I like a lot of forums. I like podcasts a lot. I love 60 Minutes. I love, you know, I just like, I like news. Sometimes I feel a little unfulfilled because I think, you know, giving people a minute 20 on a story that really needs a lot more context is sometimes frustrating. But I like all sorts of platforms.
00:46:19.340Side note, I loved your iHeart podcast about JFK.
00:46:24.260Yep, Soledad likes podcasts so much that she also makes those too.
00:46:27.920She did a 10-part series exploring who killed JFK with Rob Reiner.
00:46:33.100Yes, that Rob Reiner, who first came to prominence as the son-in-law on the 70s CBS sitcom All in the Family,
00:46:39.660and went on to make truly iconic films like This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally,
00:46:47.060and my personal favorite, The First Wives Club, and pretty much every other movie that you probably liked in the 80s and 90s.
00:47:21.920He was just so complimentary, wonderful to work with the nicest human being to everybody.1.00
00:47:27.220As you know, sometimes people come in and, you know, if they're a big mucky muck, they might not be the nicest to, you know, somebody who's, you know, who's who's recording them or if something's going wrong and we can't figure it out, you know, and it's taking a little time.0.97
00:47:41.400He just you could not ask for a cooler, nicer, more wonderful human being than Rob Reiter.0.99
00:47:48.060It was such a pleasure to work with him.
00:47:49.740I literally enjoyed every moment of it that makes me so happy to hear you know they say don't meet
00:47:55.320your heroes but I'm happy sold out of Ryan Rob Reiner very nice people I've got some other names
00:48:00.440for you that I'll tell you not to meet but Rob Reiner is amazing he was amazing and I just I
00:48:05.080don't know I just love watching people who are kind to the person who's taking in his audio
00:48:09.900who's amazing to the AP who's great to the PA who's like anybody need water I just love that
00:48:17.260you know because often people uh as you know in this business are really not and so it was amazing
00:48:22.160and i did i loved him and he was my hero my dad he was my dad's favorite character of course you
00:48:26.760know we watched all in the family so i like when you talked about you know your mom if your mom
00:48:32.420was still alive she'd be impressed by our interview my dad that my dad would be done
00:48:36.680if he were still alive and he knew that i was doing a project with rob like that would be it
00:48:40.540He'd be like, now, now I can die because she's made it.
00:49:10.080And I feel like, I don't know, part of me, I jokingly have said, I feel like we have lost the fight.
00:49:16.140You know, we gave it a good shot. We got to take the L.
00:49:18.680Sometimes people ask me, like, so what do you do? And I'm like, I honestly don't know.
00:49:23.000I don't I look at I mean, I used to spend a lot of time on Twitter, but I find it really scary to forward videos and things because I just don't can't verify if they're true.
00:49:33.400AI is so good and can be so deceptive, frankly, that it's just, I don't, you know, there's so
00:49:39.840many things that I just don't know. And there's so much information coming across the trance. So
00:49:43.820it's really hard to, to follow. So I try not to weigh in on things that I haven't specifically
00:49:49.020covered and spent time on because I, I don't want to be that person who passes along things that
00:49:54.000are inappropriate and, you know, and, and just untrue. But it is a crazy time and it is, I don't
00:50:00.960see, I don't see a near future where it improves. I mean, I was going to ask if you, when you think
00:50:07.600about the future of journalism and media, are you hopeful about where we might be going? It sounds
00:50:12.220like maybe not so much. No, I mean, I think disinformation and misinformation is a different
00:50:17.120category and journalism generally, which is also struggling at this moment, as you well know. But
00:50:21.380yeah, I think the history of journalism has been like this, right? We've had really highs and lows.
00:50:27.220And so I think there's lots of, I think there are great journalists out there who are doing really good work.
00:50:31.940I think it's a very challenging time for a host of reasons and with a host of people they're trying to interview and people they're working for and people they're trying to put on TV.
00:50:41.500So I think it's a bad time for journalists, but I do think there's always these ups and downs, you know, where people love journalism right now.
00:50:50.600They trust their local news. And yet local news stations and papers are dropping every day. Every day, they disappear. So we have to solve a bunch of problems, including monetization, before we can say, yes, journalism is going to be saved.
00:51:07.780because, frankly, a lot of the garbage is very, you know, worth it.
00:51:16.480You know, it's just not expensive. It's cheap.0.80
00:51:18.560And to do good reporting is expensive.
00:51:20.300And so, you know, I understand why people pick the cheap talking heads
00:55:24.640One of my last questions for you is just, what does it feel like to see the response to the work that you've helped put out into the world?
00:55:50.700We were in hash marks, which means it didn't have enough viewers to like actually count them.
00:55:55.400I love doing that show. That was a great show. Right. So ahead of its time.
00:55:59.080But but no one watched it. And it's so, you know, I I guess it's always great when the work that you've done and you're you're associated with a scene because that's awesome.
00:56:10.220You just want people to see it, especially in documentaries. You want people to see it.
00:56:13.360So it's it's amazing. It feels great. But also, I think there's just a zillion other projects.
00:56:17.920Of course, since it's award season for docs, you you end up watching everybody else's doc, too.
00:56:23.440So all I do is watch docs all the time. There's a zillion fantastic projects out there, a zillion.
00:56:29.820And so I would say people should be more like you and learn to love docs, maybe more than watching a lot of talking heads rotating through every half hour.
00:56:38.900Oh, my gosh. There is no I've said it on the show before.
00:56:40.960there's no truer, better medium, things like actual stories that have been told and happened
00:56:47.660will always be more interesting, more layered, more complex than anything anybody could come up
00:56:52.880with. Documentary is where it's at. Yep. Yep. I agree. From your mouth to God's ears, let me say.
00:57:00.200Soledad O'Brien, I'm completely geeked out. Thank you so much for being here.
00:57:05.240It's an honor. I have chills. Where can people follow you? What do you've got?
00:57:10.520like how can people keep in touch we always have projects we're doing so we um obviously we are on
00:57:16.660the um award circuit now which means we're doing a lot of screenings etc etc it's been really fun
00:57:22.260to go to some of these awards shows because i'm getting to pull out some old gowns and you know
00:57:27.260squeezing on um uh so so uh if anything that you want to follow around that kind of stuff uh i'm
00:57:34.000on instagram of course at soledad o'brien one word i don't do a lot on x people sometimes reach out
00:57:39.660So every, every four weeks I go in and respond to a million people who I've ignored.
00:57:44.480So apologies to anybody who's reaching out to me on X, but it's just, I, it's a little0.93
00:57:48.500bit, I feel like it's everything you post to post later becomes something about white