Episode 6 – Soledad O’Brien on Journalism and Public Policy

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] This’ll

[0:00:02 Speaker 1] is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Way Take you behind the scenes of policy with the people who help shape it for more. Visit LBJ dot utexas Studied you

[0:00:21 Speaker 3] I’m excited to have with me today and her podcast pal Sand Purpose, Soledad O Brien. And it’s an award winning journalist, author, entrepreneur, philanthropist, just an amazing young woman. Really

[0:00:33 Speaker 4] love that. You said young. Thank you. What you are compared Teoh relative Soledad is going to

[0:00:40 Speaker 3] be our commencement speakers. She’s graciously agreed to share some of her thinking with our graduates. This will be our 48th graduating class today, so I’m Soledad. But when we do these kinds of podcasts, what we’re trying to get it is getting down to the core of policy and how people have worked in policy and different fastest of policy, how they feel about it. So obviously we’re in interesting times and policy, and by interesting, you mean crazy,

[0:01:05 Speaker 4] crazy, interesting,

[0:01:06 Speaker 3] confusing. You know, people aren’t sure where things are going. You know whether we go to the past, whether it’s a different future, so There’s a lot of uncertainty in the air. And of course we’re trying to train students in public policy. So how do we approach that? And so were you trained a lot with data and a lot of assumptions that people use on the data.

[0:01:26 Speaker 2] So can you tell us your a

[0:01:27 Speaker 3] leader in news media and news media depends on data and information.

[0:01:31 Speaker 2] How do you value that? And how do you

[0:01:33 Speaker 3] seek out sources that you feel are really important and are reliable to you?

[0:01:38 Speaker 4] Yes. So I

[0:01:38 Speaker 3] think one of the big crisis is we’re having right

[0:01:40 Speaker 2] now is exactly that There was a time

[0:01:43 Speaker 3] when you would never put somebody on, Let’s say, a panel. If they didn’t have some kind of credible experience that would add value. Now you might agree with them. You might disagree with them.

[0:01:54 Speaker 2] You might feel

[0:01:55 Speaker 3] that they reflect exactly how you feel politically or or you might feel like, Oh my gosh, this person, I completely on the other side of

[0:02:03 Speaker 2] the political aisle. But there’s always a sense that they had a value because they had served as Thea

[0:02:10 Speaker 3] Embassador to China for 15 years, or they had

[0:02:12 Speaker 2] they had done the job.

[0:02:14 Speaker 3] So there was a certain amount of credibility, and I’ve have found that often now in media. Adding to a lot of the chaos that I think people feel is this sense that it doesn’t really matter your resume. It really is what you’re gonna say, will you? Will you throw a bomb into the

[0:02:32 Speaker 4] conversation? Are you willing to go over the top? Are

[0:02:34 Speaker 3] you willing to be insane? Are you willing to just make up facts? Are you willing to be a character if you will? And it’s been described that way on by some people, a character in this play versus actually having

[0:02:47 Speaker 2] thoughtful people who don’t have to agree but certainly should be having true conversations. I think in journalism most the

[0:02:55 Speaker 3] work that I’ve done in documentaries are always around some policy. The policy in the data undergirds the narrative. The personal story that we’re covering rights were telling the story of a

[0:03:06 Speaker 2] person, but underneath it is

[0:03:08 Speaker 3] a real policy issue that we’re trying to dig into, and so it has really concerned me, and I

[0:03:13 Speaker 2] think it’s gonna be

[0:03:13 Speaker 3] a real challenge for the students who are graduating today.

[0:03:16 Speaker 2] How did they were in this flux? Were in a shift. And

[0:03:20 Speaker 3] And how do you make sure that you’re thinking about policy and thinking about serving the

[0:03:25 Speaker 2] public, using actual evidence and real data and fax?

[0:03:31 Speaker 3] Um, you know, it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a problematic

[0:03:34 Speaker 2] time. And I think sometimes the media, actually it’s somewhat guilty in not not necessarily helping the situation.

[0:03:41 Speaker 3] I think you found something very important because another thing that happens here is we can go to data. We can go to evidence. And what are soon’s need to do is not only associate evidence for accuracy and reliability, but also how do you translate that into what you said near did The people can understand

[0:03:57 Speaker 2] if I had a dollar for every public policy or public affairs institution that produced a really fantastic report that was bound and delivered somewhere, you know, and and didn’t get out to people, right, if you if you’re doing all this great research, but it doesn’t actually live, what’s the point? And I think for me a

[0:04:19 Speaker 3] lot of my work over the last really five years or so has been trying to

[0:04:23 Speaker 2] help organizations connect history and data and studies to actual human beings who need to understand the information at

[0:04:32 Speaker 3] a time where we have more access to information than

[0:04:34 Speaker 2] ever. And yet there’s so little information that actually gets to people

[0:04:38 Speaker 3] in many ways. And so I do. I think this is another challenge for your students now, professionals as they head out of graduation today to really ah, think about how they could have a voice, you know, a realistic voice in the world. That’s not just Here’s a study check. I’ve done the stuff sampling. It has to impact

[0:04:58 Speaker 2] people. And some of that, too, I think, is you actually have

[0:05:02 Speaker 3] to be able to use that and engage with people and collaborate with people, right? It can’t just be about throwing fax at each other. It has to be about saying Okay, we know and we agree on these data points.

[0:05:12 Speaker 2] How do we get? How do we get to

[0:05:14 Speaker 3] a solution? Often I think we look at problems and we like toe pick apart problems. We don’t really focus on what is solution we’re trying to get to. And again, I say that as a journalist, but also as a citizen. I think our government does that as well. I think one of the things that we talked about earlier is ensuring that our soon’s focus on the right problem. But it doesn’t stop there. It starts there. That’s the beginning. And then once you have that, then it is what kind. And we’re talking about solutions or options, and are they feasible? And who’s had input into that? So a lot of our structure of how we teach and how we’re trying to prepare this set of students who have actually said I’m stepping for because I want to be in the middle of the most complex problems and I want to solve these problems, I think we have to, um, se to these students directly, that this is what you have to face. You hit it right on the head. You have to face all of these factors. You have to bring them together. You have to be the glue, and then you have to take it out on not just stay inside. It has to make a difference and understand that there’s many, um, points of view on solutions that

[0:06:15 Speaker 2] someone

[0:06:15 Speaker 3] told me a great story, not probably mangle it in the retelling, but they were talking about it. Was that a philanthropy conference? And they were telling the story about how people were standing by

[0:06:24 Speaker 2] a river and they saw babies were were falling into the river.

[0:06:28 Speaker 3] And so people immediately mobilized to grab the babies out of the

[0:06:31 Speaker 2] river. And then someone said, Well, wait a minute. We should go upstream and see where the baby’s falling into the river, right? And they there was a whole group of people are like, Oh, the solution actually is not just grabbing babies out of the river started solutions be where they falling into the river. We should stop that. And then someone else said, Well, actually, maybe we should be teaching babies how to swim, right? Like there are all kinds of ways to think about solutions. It’s a fable,

[0:06:54 Speaker 3] obviously no real babies air dropping its

[0:06:57 Speaker 4] rivers. But I probably should’ve started with, but but I always it could exam. I love that

[0:07:02 Speaker 2] example because it really was all about what kind of solutions are going to be the solutions that really work. And there’s some short term, medium term and long term solutions, and also some of those solutions are going to go back to the people who are being served as

[0:07:18 Speaker 3] whether or not they’re relevant, having a solution that actually doesn’t work. Having you know, the surgery was a success, but the patient died. I kind of think

[0:07:26 Speaker 2] that actually does happen

[0:07:27 Speaker 3] a lot. And so I think it’s also about collaborating with communities to make

[0:07:31 Speaker 2] sure that the solutions are actually effective solutions for the people who who lived

[0:07:37 Speaker 3] there. They’re not just imposed upon people. I think that you’ve hit on another very important thing because you can get wrapped up in the study and the excitement of, you know, really trying to pick things apart. And you can say this is what I think the problems. But if you go to the people that you’re trying to help, that might not be. What they see is the most important. The history is littered with projects that never really got off the ground because no one thought to include community voices, and if you don’t you’re pretty much destined to fail. It’s just interesting just in our short time together. Just a few minutes in a few minutes, upstairs. How you really hit on the core of what we’re trying to do in public policy schools

[0:08:14 Speaker 4] because essential. And it I mean, I

[0:08:16 Speaker 3] think it’s because it is the essence of what it means to bring solutions to the world. Right, Right. We know, in a way, journalism, I think, takes many of these same pieces. You know, we like to think about, you know, here’s the story and then

[0:08:32 Speaker 2] someone says, Well, actually,

[0:08:33 Speaker 4] hey, I’m here. I’m here and I think

[0:08:36 Speaker 2] you might be wrong. Yes. You know, when I started working in TV news, women’s stories were considered very fluffy. You know, education was

[0:08:45 Speaker 3] like a woman’s story. So, you know, like it wasn’t it wasn’t what we would consider be the A block story that wasn’t a community health center. Opening

[0:08:53 Speaker 2] like that was all the light stuff. And now we know over time that those air the elements that make life livable for people that those are actually the big issues that matter to people Child care was considered the sort of ridiculous issue. It certainly from journalism perspective. You No, no, no male reporter who was our big deal

[0:09:15 Speaker 3] would be like, Listen I’m gonna go get into that

[0:09:18 Speaker 2] childcare story. But when you actually talk to people about what is on insurmountable problem or something that is really standing in their way, it’s childcare often. And so I think we’ve seen some shifts in journalism because people have informed us and even the coverage of minorities, you know, or or underserved

[0:09:37 Speaker 3] populations. You know, people have gone into to tell.

[0:09:40 Speaker 2] Let me tell the story and people will say, Well, actually, our stories, this we have a story to tell, you know, Maybe just give us the mike, actually, and we have, right, we have something that we want to share about our community, And I think that’s been

[0:09:52 Speaker 3] a real shift in my time, from starting as a reporter 30 years ago to now. One of the things we talk about a lot to is not only trying to get out there and walking people shoes and listen to them, but how do you navigate to people have very different opposing positions? Yellow thumb That always works. If you

[0:10:09 Speaker 4] just scream at them as loud as you possibly can usually wear down, break out like it’s a shy. I mean, what you would think that that was the answer, because that’s kind of how

[0:10:19 Speaker 3] people engaged today. It is. There’s a lot of yelling,

[0:10:22 Speaker 4] Yeah, talking over each other understanding with you. No, this the podcast. That’s how you do it.

[0:10:29 Speaker 2] Ah Ah, Congressman. A freshman

[0:10:32 Speaker 3] congressman said something interesting interesting to me the other day, and I do a public affairs show for for Hearst TV syndicated.

[0:10:40 Speaker 2] And he said when he came to Congress, he he was at a meeting to solve some issue and he walked in and he’s he runs a small business. He said, I I looked for the White board like we’re solving a problem.

[0:10:54 Speaker 4] Where we gonna throw, you know, where is there a way for the idea that someone’s gonna do you know, the marker and we’re going you

[0:10:59 Speaker 2] know, And And he said it really was not about that at all that everybody was just formulating sort of positions, that there was no solution. He’s like, I came here to solve problems. My way might not be the only way, but I have a point of view that might add value to a solution. And he said that you know, there was no whiteboard. There was no no one was there to do what we know you do when you’re trying to solve problems, right? He said. Don’t say Okay, let’s identify. And so I thought that that was really revealing for a freshman Congress member to say, You know, this is not how government should work. No.

[0:11:38 Speaker 3] And I think they’re stuck in a time that that’s really sort of what happens in the past, when people they would consider things, they would have hearings. They talk about things. They didn’t have a stake in a solution. Right then they were formulating, like you say, creating a solution, understanding the problem, and then they would know that and then they would come together. Now, often they come together at the very end when there is disagreement and people cannot find common ground. So they’re there to try to figure it out. Well, there’s so much history and so much baggage, and they weren’t there at the stages when it was when objective kind of observation was okay. Now it’s like get in there and fight for us and get this position. That’s another thing. We really have lost quite a bit about is it’s OK to consider things, to take your time, to listen, not to have an answer right away. But tweet waited on 24 hour news cycle. And so they had to

[0:12:27 Speaker 2] that that time pressure, I think, has changed a lot. But, you know, it’s it’s sort of why federal government, um, in terms of popularity is is lo and why local leaders do well because they have to solve problems. You know, they just they have to solve problems or they won’t stay in office. And so I think that they

[0:12:48 Speaker 3] end up being less about positioning and more about. Here’s a solution. And so I think that a lot of the freshman members of Congress who we interview a lot have recognized that there has to be a better way. It gives me actually tremendous hope to that. Great though the day actually recognize that. Want to do something about that? Absolutely. Because we see often we just see 2030 members of Congress on are in the media speed. No matter what media feed, we don’t see the other 505 in the background trying to work things out, and that’s to me is very dangerous coming.

[0:13:20 Speaker 4] So you’ll see him soon. Yeah, they’ll be out campaigning. But you know, when you

[0:13:23 Speaker 3] like you and you go behind and they’re really thinking about things and you’re talking to them about issues, they’re very thoughtful. And one of the things that worry about a lot is it the image of of a national Legislature, eyes really tarnished by the fixed that you know, where we’re seeing those kinds of expectations played out in the media?

[0:13:40 Speaker 2] Yeah, I think it is tarnished. But I also

[0:13:41 Speaker 3] think those things make you know it’s a pendulum and makes people want more and better. You know, I always ask the Congress members who come on my show

[0:13:50 Speaker 2] God, that job looks terrible and they actually love to serve. I really think that they like to serve, and they recognize that you this there is a better way

[0:14:03 Speaker 3] and they have to be part of a

[0:14:04 Speaker 2] solution. I think there’s a lot of honor in deciding that you’re gonna be part of a solution and not just stand on the edge is being like that. That’s terrible. It’s awful. So So I really do, you know, kudos to those who come in and say We have to work together and, you know, we were just doing a couple of Congress members of the other day, our program who talked about how for a freshman, You know, civility is the issue they’ve embraced this year, like they’re going to tell you

[0:14:31 Speaker 3] how they’re doing that, how they’re working through there.

[0:14:34 Speaker 2] I think it’s literally holding each other accountable for speaking well for having respect for each other. They don’t have to agree. You know,

[0:14:42 Speaker 4] it’s not a matter of saying I’m gonna pretend I might agree with everything my

[0:14:44 Speaker 2] colleague across the aisle says. But it is saying is a human being. We’re gonna assume that that this person cares about the country and we all do because we’re here working toward making things better. We might not agree, but we’re going to speak civilly to each other at a time when the national discourse, Really, I think it’s fair to say Is it a pretty maybe even the all time low and so leaving the idea that that’s something

[0:15:08 Speaker 3] that they’re considering gives me tremendous

[0:15:11 Speaker 7] hope. Um,

[0:15:12 Speaker 2] I really feel that that they understand the issues and I I don’t think people

[0:15:18 Speaker 3] want to work in an environment where nothing’s working. That’s the whole point to is like they can change the environment. You know, the people who are in that environment or that wants to change it. And like you say, if they recognize that and they they work on, it thinks this gives me great hope, Really. Sometimes people don’t see that they don’t have timeto watch a lot of different news feeds or whenever they go to their favorites.

[0:15:37 Speaker 2] But the media has a responsibility to, you know, we tend to take the loudest voices. We take the crazies on the edge. We were, you

[0:15:46 Speaker 3] know, because you want to make a quote unquote good TV on, and I think

[0:15:50 Speaker 2] that’s really problematic. But, you know, again, I think you’re seeing when we started our show. So our show is public affairs. Once a week, Sunday mornings and we started, we had about 100,000 viewers and we because we pre tape our show,

[0:16:07 Speaker 5] um,

[0:16:07 Speaker 3] we found that we couldn’t respond to news the day right, so we would never wake up and say Good morning. The president tweeted last night. Oh, my gosh, because we tape of couple of days in

[0:16:18 Speaker 2] advance. So we had to have context, anything that was talking about the First Amendment, our view would be. So what is the First Amendment? How does it work? What would the founding fathers thinking about when the when they thought about the First Amendment? What is it supposed to do? How is it supposed to serve people? What is Jerry Mandarin? Why is it even called gerrymandering? And what is it? What are the implications, you know? So we had to take this contextual view of the world of the country. We have grown. We have about a 1,000,007 viewers. We have the highest number of millennials. What took a public affairs like they’re up watching a public affair show and on Sunday mornings. And that is because I do believe people actually are kind of over the screaming on, and they like toe understand an issue. And so even that gives me hope that there’s a sense of just Oh, my God, this happened. Oh, my God. This with everybody over here. There’s something else. Oh, my God. This Yes. I don’t know that. That’s serving people. Certainly. I don’t know that it’s added value, and I think you see ratings go down and the same time other people say, Let’s do podcasts. Let’s have thoughtful conversations. How do we dig into issues? So I again I you know, we’re in the middle of a shift and I think any time you’re in the middle of a shift, it’s very chaotic and it does not feel good. But I had a boss

[0:17:39 Speaker 3] many years ago who said, You know, there’s opportunity in

[0:17:41 Speaker 2] chaos and I think that’s really true.

[0:17:44 Speaker 3] I agree. I agree. The other thing I was thinking about when when you were talking is that, you know, the first branch of government is the legislative branch and the legislative in the Constitution. And it’s supposed to be in informed, a legislative branch, no informing the electric. So we go to the media and say, Okay, how do you do this? And I think what you’re saying is getting away from now just reporting facts of something that actually happened, putting them in context of our democracy of our republic, of our you know, of our bodies of governing of the people who govern is really critical.

[0:18:18 Speaker 2] I’m going to bet you $5 that there was more done. More time

[0:18:23 Speaker 3] spent talking about Kanye’s comments about slavery being a choice than actually walking through what’s in the farm bill. There you go. I told you three

[0:18:31 Speaker 2] fairly confident I will win that $5 right? You know, because I agree. But what you said before

[0:18:36 Speaker 3] is really important. The fact that you can take the story that’s in the farm bill, you can take that to real people. You can show how the farm bill has tensions in it and bring it to people. So

[0:18:45 Speaker 2] sometimes I think

[0:18:45 Speaker 3] we try to simplify things because we think people aren’t sophisticated enough to understand. But I really don’t believe that. I said, If we believe that we are done, we are done. You know,

[0:18:54 Speaker 2] I think people listen. I completely agree. People are when it affects your life. You’re very sophisticated. I did a documentary about opioid addiction and most of the time we were in Kentucky talking to people who in many cases were some cases middle class people. But at some cases, people who really

[0:19:13 Speaker 3] had struggled and didn’t have a lot of

[0:19:14 Speaker 2] access. I mean, I would say under privileged and underserved and certainly not well educated, Let me tell you that the details that they fully understand about options for helping people who are addicted to opioids they have their Ph. D’s in navigating a really failed in flawed system. They may not be

[0:19:35 Speaker 3] particularly book smart and have numerous degrees after their name, but

[0:19:38 Speaker 2] they understand the system better than everybody else. And they know where they’re not being served. They fully get it. So I agree

[0:19:46 Speaker 3] with you. I think we you know, we have the since

[0:19:47 Speaker 2] I no one gets it. Oh, no. They they fully get it. No one more understood the failure

[0:19:54 Speaker 3] of government than people in Hurricane Katrina. You covered? Yes,

[0:19:59 Speaker 2] well educated. But they fully understood where they were not being served and why they were not

[0:20:05 Speaker 3] going to get back into their homes any time soon. Yes, yes. Well, I want to ask you if

[0:20:10 Speaker 2] you were

[0:20:11 Speaker 3] to give advice to students, not just our students who are in public policy and public affairs for students who are going out who are very interested in the public good in trying to improve the public good. What are one or two things you would leave with them in terms of what you’ve seen in your life and all the accomplishments you’ve hit and all the challenges you’ve had a swell,

[0:20:29 Speaker 2] you know, I think for me it always comes back down to data. You know, a lot of

[0:20:33 Speaker 3] what we did in documentaries were

[0:20:35 Speaker 2] show people to tell a story, but then also say, like, Here’s the data because I think what the news does a bad job in is is giving a historical context. So, for example, we did a documentary about all

[0:20:48 Speaker 3] the women who served at ground zero as rescuers. Women came to me and they said, You know,

[0:20:53 Speaker 2] there’s there’s a bunch of women who worked as rescuers, but they’re left out

[0:20:56 Speaker 3] of the story I said, Listen, I cover. Actually,

[0:20:59 Speaker 2] I’m literally said, Listen, I covered that story, so I don’t think so. But I will check, You know, we’ll do a search of the data and I’ll come back to and they were right and

[0:21:10 Speaker 4] I had to be where they back and grovel, right, because

[0:21:13 Speaker 2] what happened was all those women were in the story. But as victims

[0:21:16 Speaker 3] as rescue, they were not reflected in the art they were not. Their stories weren’t told. They were not front and center in news

[0:21:24 Speaker 2] coverage as rescuers. So we want to do

[0:21:26 Speaker 3] this, Doc, about the women of ground

[0:21:28 Speaker 2] zero and the amount of pushback that I got was so from eliminating people would stand up in screenings and say So I guess you’re saying women are more

[0:21:39 Speaker 3] brave than men on

[0:21:41 Speaker 2] and I was like, one I don’t even know what that means. And Number 29 11 had an opportunity for a lot of people to be brave. What are you even talking about? But I recognize that, um, you’re going to get pushback. And by having data and having being able to show those stories, you know, there’s so much really people would come at us weirdly with so much anger. And we we ended up doing this documentary, um, infected. The way I

[0:22:12 Speaker 3] was able to get it done

[0:22:12 Speaker 2] was I ended the conversation by saying, Do you know how many documentaries I’ve done on the German shepherds 11 like,

[0:22:20 Speaker 4] why are we having this conversation? I don’t Five

[0:22:23 Speaker 2] things on the German shepherds of 9 11 No one gave me any pushback. And then when the doc actually aired, two things happen one the doctor. Very well, partly because we were taking a different look at the story. But also we, um the story of the women of ground zero isn’t just the story of women, Right then. One of the main characters is a guy whose wife was a police officer who lost her life that day. You know? And so I think sometimes you have to show people like, I know this sounds scary, but let’s let’s show you the data. Let’s tell that story. I mean so to me. Solution Number one advice piece Number one is to make sure you have all the data and the evidence at your fingertips. And again, as you say, not just raw data, but but narratives that are connected to date. You have to be able to tell people. Let me let me explain. You know what I think you’re missing in this Sandhamn?

[0:23:18 Speaker 3] A real person that they can relate

[0:23:20 Speaker 2] to. Oh, yes. Yeah. And then I think especially for people who care about policy, you have to not forget who you serve. It just I can’t I mean, I sit on the board of the Rand Corporation, and we make some of the most amazing looking, you know, like court reports. Oh, and some of them are like, 780 pages. And I was like, Wow, no journalists will ever really want to tell you, You know, like, how do you take this amazing research and information and storytelling and turn that into serving actual people? So my second piece of advice is really to constantly come back to, you know, what are you serving people? But are you serving people? But are you serving people? And I think if you can kind of keep yourself on that track, you really have the opportunity to make some pretty great change.

[0:24:07 Speaker 3] Well, I thank you so much has been such a pleasure to talk to you and, you know, question you and be with you for this few minutes. Thank you so much so that Thank you.

[0:24:23 Speaker 1] Thistles. Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin Way take you behind the scenes of policy with the people who help shape it to learn more. Visit LBJ dot utexas dot eu and follow us on Twitter or Facebook at the LBJ School. Thank you for listening