The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities

by Soledad O'Brien, Rose Marie Arce

From top CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O'Brien comes a highly personal look at her biggest reporting moments from Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the devastating Haiti earthquake, and to the historic 2008 U.S. elections and high profile interviews with everyday Americans. Drawing on her own unique background as well as her experiences at the front lines of the most provocative issues in today's society, and from her work on the acclaimed documentaries Black in America and Latino in America, O'Brien offers her candid, clear-eyed take on where we are as a country and where we're going.What emerges is both an inspiring message of hope and a glimpse into the heart and soul of one of America's most straight-talking reporters.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Journalism, African American, Book Club

334 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 2, 2010

Reviews

[Anna Gallegos]

I like Soledad O'Brien as a reporter, but part of this book makes me wish she stuck to only being on TV. The descriptions of her childhood and education is hard to step into because her use of staccato sentences are devoid of any personality as an author. That's a pretty difficult thing to accomplish when writing about yourself. The memoir picks up when she describes Hurricane Katrina and reporting from Haiti. The book does have some interesting vignettes about interviewees who have had a profound affect on her personal life and view of race. Overall, O'Brien's writing is disjointed.

This book really deserves a 2.5, but for the sake of Goodreads, I'll bump it up to a 3. If you're looking for a book about race relations in the media, it's worth a read.

[Steve]

“A lifetime of memories, lessons learned and experiences” are collected here by a CNN anchor and special correspondent, Soledad O’Brien.

Within the 321 pages of this memoir are not so much-behind-the-scenes, nuts and bolts detail of how major television networks cover big news stories like earthquakes in Chile, Hurricane Katrina, a tsunami in Southeast Asia or an earthquake in Haiti.

What motivates O’Brien is not the size of those stories but the nameless individuals caught up in those tragedies. Her endless quest as a reporter is to tell the stories of the victims, to put a face on the disasters that make headlines around the world. This autobiography is really their biography.

Woven all the way through this very personal journal is the issue of race in America, what it means to be black or Latino in the USA. O’Brien, the daughter of a black woman from Cuba and an Australian, she considers herself a member of both people groups. This up-close and personal racial tapestry would make the late Charles Kuralt proud.

[Linda]

My rating on this one is more of a 2.5. It wasn't a bad book -- a book group choice -- but I probably wouldn't have chosen to read it otherwise. The stories of growing up biracial and multi-ethnic (is that a word?) on Long Island were somewhat interesting. I wasn't aware of the history of her career since we've rarely had cable TV. Some of stories she has covered are powerful and dramatic, including Hurricane Katrina and particularly the earthquake in Haiti. The writing was too journalistic for my taste. The sentences were usually short and simple, which, for me, made the reading seem choppy.

[Cheryl]

At the beginning of the book, I didn't find her personal life or upbringing very interesting. It seemed to be missing something for me. I did get more interested in her work life. Her work during Hurricane Katrina and then the earthquake in Haiti was moving. Her pieces on Black in America and Latino in America, I wish I had seen those. She talked about reading blogs and the writers not thinking she was worthy of being the person to report on the stories for Black in America. Black folks didn't think she was black enough. It was really just an OK read for me, but I am giving 3 stars for the journalism stories.

[Amanda Irving]

I really enjoyed reading her book. Her name was vaguely familiar to me. In the book, O'Brien explores her sheltered, close-knit upbringing growing up in Smithtown, Long Island, New York. She talks about a variety of social issues, such as privilege, class, race, and immigration issues. Although this book was written about 7 years ago, the content is prevalent to today. There were a few touching, significant moments she highlighted as a journalist that resonated with me. The first one was when she went to Haiti shortly after the tragic earthquake. It was an extremely humbling experience for her. That trip has taught her to count her blessings and to appreciate life because it's short. The second moment was when she went to Atlanta to make a documentary about the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's letters and sermons.

[Carl]

I enjoyed this book by Soledad O'Brien. However, the editing left much to be desired. In the e-reader version I used, missing periods between sentences were a constant issue, often disrupting the flow of the dialogue and narrative. Despite this, O'Brien offered an engaging glimpse into her upbringing and family history.

Two major stories dominate the book: her coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti. These accounts comprise a significant portion of the narrative. Admittedly, I found the extensive focus on these events to be somewhat excessive at times—particularly the prolonged discussion of Haiti and its aftermath. I occasionally wished the book would move on to other topics.

Overall, these editing issues and the heavy emphasis on just two major stories were the main factors that shaped my reading experience.

[Julie]

This book gets a 4 for readability and telling her stories in such a compelling way. There were some spots where the tenses didn’t seem right and in my kindle version where the punctuation seemed to be missing. But I really enjoyed it overall.

A day later and I’m still thinking about her messages about the failure of institutions and counting on the goodness of individuals and feeling both depressed and inspired.

[Jane Thompson]

Journalist Story

This book tells the story of a white,Latina, black girl who was able to succeed in her chosen field. She states that going to Harvard was no big deal, but I remembered how I wanted to go but could not because they didn't take women. The author tells a great story but I think it was a big deal to go to Harvard

[Cynthia Bemis Abrams]

Best book I've read in a while. Fifteen years since its publication, her narration and insights are powerful and help us understand how America got to where it is in 2026. I highly recommend this and assure you the writing is accessible and fast-paced.

[David Johnson]

amazing

[Zetsubou Sensei]

I usually like to finish a book before I give a review. I read more than half before I put it down, so I do not know how accurate my rating/comments are for the rest of the book.

Like many other comments regarding Soledad's book. I enjoyed the chapter about Hurricane Katrina the most.
However, besides the Hurricane Katrina episode, I wasn't particularly interested in her story. I picked this book up as a free book.

The book generally felt heavily opinionated but without much depth. Most of the sentences are curt, trying to sound objective, but is actually very biased. Because her sentences are brief and direct, it is difficult as a reader to actually form an opinion other than hers regarding a scenario.Although she keeps trying to present herself as open and fair because of her "special" upbringing among immigrant biracial parents, I find her to be very prejudiced.

In the book, the author seems to not be able to relate to anything other than latinos and blacks. She mentions briefly her family in Australia, but she does not identify herself as white... ever. She is probably too obsessed with being black, latino, and an underdog. She tries too hard trying to fit in with the people she interviews. I really don't understand why she has to emphasize the support she sees from only blacks and latinos. There should be more to the story if she wants to talk about race. What she says and does seem hypocritical because she does not seem to care to share any story of someone who is not a poor black and/or latino; she feels that they are the only ones suffering.

Her book is also all over the place. She calls many characters in the story "remarkably average;" therefore, she should stop jumping from flashback to flashback and referring to the names because I won't remember.
I stopped reading during the hispanic kid episode.I had to put the book down when she started a rant about a kid who was fuming about the illegal immigrants. Yes, I get it, it was sad to see someone not care about the kid who had died...but how come you are labeling him? I want to know why he is angry. Instead she moves on and say,"Yet I still don't understand the rage. I look at this totally healthy, good-looking, privileged kid and just don't get it." There may be more than the unspoken word. She labels people in the opposite direction, never caring to see from anyone she finds "privileged." She continues to briefly lecture the kid in the story, but it would have been better if she had a honest interview with him to fully understand the anger.

As a reporter, she should understand that each story has two sides, and that she needs to start getting the story from the other side so readers can better understand the situation.

Sorry, this rant itself is very unorganized, but I will leave with one more thing I liked and one more thing I disliked in the book.

- "This [United States] is a country of chances, but not of endless chances." (53)
Great quote and makes me appreciate any opportunity I have ever been given.

- Soledad, talking aobut her grandmother, "It was sad when she when she ended up in a nursing home where no one spoke Spanish."

This sentence made me fume. I have a grandmother who also does not speak English who I am personally close to. To see Soledad talking over and over throughout the book about the importance of family in latino homes, I wanted to flip tables at this point. She herself, one of her siblings, or her parents should take care of her abuelita!!!! With all the money she makes, I doubt she could not afford to find her a better place in the U.S. that has someone to speak Spanish to her besides just deep negligence! Her family itself is not poor either. Spanish is really common in the U.S., there MUST have been a better way of handling her grandmother's situation. As a child of immigrant parents myself, we refer to nursing homes as a PRISON for elderly immigrants. A place where our elderly loved ones cannot speak to anyone and away from family near the end of their lives, is that not worse than death? If Soledad realizes that no one could speak to her Abuelita at the nursing home, why didn't she do anything??? Feeling sad does not help anything. I find that throughout her book, all she does is "do nothing." Like she says, she doesn't face a fight, she just "passes by." I don't find it admirable at all. (I still give the book two stars because it's not a horrible read and the Katrina part was good)

[Andre(Read-A-Lot)]

Soledad O'Brien has written a rather prosaic story about her journey here in America. She doesn't write with any considerable depth, almost like she is very cautious about diving deep into her own story. She tells us her father is a white Australian and her mother is a black Cuban, and they were raised in Smithtown, Long Island NY., a town were there only a handful of black families. And her parents told her she was a Black latina and to always identify as such, not to let them take that away from you.

Throughout the book she constantly mentions her blackness and how proud she is to be black, however this doesn't exactly square with the Soledad that we know from CNN, in fact her inability to embrace blackness is one of the reasons she caught so much flak for her Black in America series. Case in point, she relates an incident in which the Rev. Jesse Jackson "is angry because CNN doesn't have enough black anchors....I interrupt to remind him I'm the anchor of American Morning. He knows that." He ends up telling Soledad after tapping her hand, to highlight her skin color, that she doesn't count. Soledad is offended by this but doesn't say anything, she stews for weeks angry that she didn't tell the man he was wrong.

She laters calls him, after having done 4 documentaries on race since that conversation, he was "totally surprised and barely remembered the details. He had not known I was black!" So, if Jesse Jackson, someone who worked at CNN for a time and was on Soledad's show several times, was unaware of her being black, how loudly could she have been proclaiming her blackness? What is the motivation for her stressing blackness in this book? She has a strong faith in America despite all the racial hang ups and the continuing deep seated racism that derails any meaningful progress. A lot of her conversation around race, has a blame the victim feel.

The best parts of the book is her recounting her reporting on big stories like Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti. Her being on the ground and seeing the devastation that these catastrophes wrought, and trying to bring a sense of what it feels like to the American viewers is her best writing. But even these parts are shallowly written, like much of her personal life. She could have been more profound in her thoughts and perhaps giving us a clearer picture of who she is. 2.5 stars.

[Neil Mudde]

This is a wonderful read, a story abou Soledad O'Brien of the renown CNN, who contrary to what I thought is not married to Michael O'Brien, the book is written with Rose Marie Arce. it is an insight into the fact that Soledad is a black woman, being born in a mixed family, she relates how she grew up in Smithtown long Island, her parents were both educated persons, and encouraged their daughters to be educated.The book deals a great deal with that fact of being black the civil rights, movement, and how many persons in the black community do not think her black enough
She talks about her life of beind a tv anchor person, travelling to New Orleans, and how she feels that America had let New Orleans down, did not provide sufficient warning, FEMA who was created to take care of people under these circumstances was completely useless, in fact trailers left by FEMA for survivors were contaminated with formaldehyde, creating a deadly gas.
She speaks of the rat race within a major TV News Service, and as we all know, of having seen reporters from various telecasts, taking enormous risks in order to show and tell the story, no considertation being given to the victims plight,
It is a good read, obviously Soledad knows what she is talking about, her position does allow her and her family to live very well, and one wonders about the sincerety of being able to understand victims, it appears to me more of a way to use the victims plights, in order to get ahead, and make more money.

[Vanessa]

Very hard to read.
Soledad is obviously a talented writer- her writing is really good yet her voice truly bothered me on every page.
B.B.D.B. -Kid Fury acronym
I struggled through the pages of this book because while Soledad is considered humble in the telling of her story in my opinion she is humble in the most privileged way. She admits that she did not have to face many of the systemic setbacks most people of color do yet felt compelled to provide encouragement.
I did not care for her encouragement. I think this would have been a better story if she had just stated the facts and acknowledged her privilege. She works hard to have boundaries between the emotional aspects of journalism and her personal emotions. That very clear boundary made her words of encouragement come off as insincere and demeaning.
In the future I may watch her reporting but I will not be reading any more stories.

[Robin]

Sometimes you check an audio book out of the library because you have no reason NOT to. I am not a Big Fan or anything - I went in with no expectations, or even backstory. Much of her story is interesting, but I have to admit I didn't finish it. The tone kind of tired me, written as it is by a television journalist (subject verb object...repeat) and read in rather the same cadence (though not by O'Brien). I just got fatigued. I also was annoyed by some faulty fact-checking, like confusing the Columbia and Challenger shuttle explosions. Petty criticism, I guess.

Stay for the Katrina coverage, the confrontation with Jesse Jackson about being "Black enough," breaking barriers at CNN, Cuban American cultural conflict... Could be a good book club read, if your group has had enough Oprah Picks.

[Diana180]

I like the idea of Soledad O'Brien. This ghosted book reads like a local television newscast: breathless, present tense, personalized. Half of it is autobiography and half of it is specifically about Hurricane Katrina and Haiti. The disaster reporting is interesting and perhaps ought to have been one or more separate books. Through both parts, her personal ideology, which stresses the importance of climbing up the class/income ladder one individual or family at a time over legislative or redistributive solutions that would compress or lessen the importance of the class/income ladder, is pretty clear. I would like to know more about her Australian father's background and how that plays into her politics.

[Erica]

While I have tremendous respect for Soledad O'Brien as a journalist, her writing style leaves much to be desired and this book was a painful read. Her upbringing as a latino-black adolescent in predominantly white, suburban Long Island town sounds like it would be interesting, but O'Brien never brings it to life. Her rise in TV journalism, her personal life, her relationships with colleagues and the world events she covered all fall flat thanks to her choppy, self-absorbed and barely-scratching-the-surface writing style. It reminded me too much of the 90-second quick blurbs you get through TV reporting rather than a compelling nonfiction book. She really needed an in-depth print journalist or ghost writer to help her develop her ideas and write this memoir.

[Harry Lane]

I respect and admire Soledad O'Brien for her work as a journalist. I thought she had a more sensitive BS detector than many of her colleagues, and was less inclined to let it pass unremarked. This book purports to be a memoir of her career, and it is that. But it is also her commentary on American culture, politics and society through the lens of several major stories she covered. Her account of covering Katrina, for example, was compelling for the human element, but it was also an explicit condemnation of our failure as a society to adequately respond to the needs of the people caught up in the disaster.

[Sawy-o]

I'm on a campaign to read books by speakers that come to CSE and enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. The writing isn't the best and O'Brien's constantly throws the word "this" in different phrases, which I found distracting. Her firsthand account of covering stories from Hurricane Katrina to the Haitian earthquake pack an emotional punch and also taught me a lot about the life of a reporter on the front lines of disasters. Her shoutouts to other CNN reporters are fun. Meeting Soledad was a thrill- she's articulate and thoughtful on a one on one level too!

[Carolyn]

This was an interesting and inciteful book. I probably would have gotten more out of it has I not stopped in the middle of reading it to read a different book and then went back to it. While the message was good it was a hard book to get myself to pick up once I got done with homework. It's just not the kind of book that helps you to escape into another world and that's exactly the kind of book I'm looking for when I finally get done wuth homework.

[James Laginess]

I was really expecting greater detail about what life is like as a reporter; instead Soledad focuses more on being an ethnic minority and the challenges she faced in pursuing a career in Media. The most interesting chapters , are those which discuss and outline CNNs role in covering Hurricane Katrina and Earthquakes in Haiti; there is a sense of compassion in her words which reflect her experience in the field during natural disasters and humanitarian crisis. 3 Stars

[Xenia Lal]

I thought Ms. O'Brien was really genuine in her writing, and she told her story that welcomed readers into her personal and professional life. She did a great job of validating herself as a woman who is black, white, and Latina and demonstrating that it is possible to be a part of more than one race and/or ethnicity.

[Lori]

Some of the stories were truly amazing and I enjoyed reading about them. I don't know what I expected overall, but I did not care for how the book was written to be so much about her family and her life growing up. It was more about a "woman from a poor black family that now has accomplishments to write about."

[Angela]

This was a really enjoyable and interesting book that gives even more insight into Soledad's life and experiences as a journalist. Her stories from New Orleans post-Kartina and Haiti after the earthquake are especially moving. She has a true talent and passion for telling the human stories behind the headline.

[Matthew]

In the brief places the author actually talked about herself or how certain stories or aspects about her job personally effected & what she was going through to accomplish said story, the narrative was very interesting.

Unfortunately a great majority of her narrative spent time rehashing aspects of whatever news story she was telling at the time. Tis a pity.

[Dave]

What a wonderful book. Learning about the realities that this exceptional woman grew up with and how she deals with her roles on the planet as journalist,woman,mother,wife, is truly inspiring ,authentic ,and gives me a whole new perspective on what makes human beings human.
Very very very well worth your time.....

[Julie]

The pace of her life is tiring to read about. So bizarre that she never went on a date in high school (too black). I'm interested to watch the videos she made about Haiti and Hurricane Katrina after hearing the touching stories.

[Gerald Curtis]

The part of this book that told about her life, news assignments and ascending career were interesting, but the endless repetitions and Haranguing about racial issues got really tedious - perhaps well over half the book.

[Gypsy Lady]

"I could feel myselt trying to formulate an answer, as if the question mereited one."

I learned that I didn't need to stop and confront every injustice thrown my way."

[Linda]

Soledad O'Brien's story of her life, and some of the stories she has shared with her audience. Hurricane Katrina was one of the big ones.