Award-winning broadcast journalist Soledad O’ Brien encouraged students to pursue truth in media during a speech at De Anza College’s Flint Center on April 22.

“If you were in fact to drop dead tomorrow would there be people who talked about who you were? Not your title, but who you were as a human being?” O’Brien asked the audience. “Real value cannot fit on a balance sheet. Real value is if you are creating something that’s meaningful.”

The Celebrity Forum kicked off its first night of O’Brien’s lecture series with an estimated crowd of 1,500.

O’Brien, a reporter for Real Sports on HBO, CNN, and Al Jazeera America, and is widely known for her human-perspective based documentaries, including “Gay in America” and “Muslim in America.”

Each highlights individual stories of poverty, indifference and misunderstanding.
“We recognized that there were stories to tell,” O’Brien said. “There were those individual stories. Those individual people whose stories mattered.”

Her presentation included multiple clips. One highlighted her experience living with a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and the effects of post-war suicidal thoughts on his family.

“I believe stories matter,” O’Brien said. “I believe building trust with an audience matters. We can use the platform to tell real stories and have real debates and make people uncomfortable at times and give real information and do what we should do. Dig up those untold stories about who we are: as individuals, as people and as
a nation.”

O’Brien left CNN in June2013 and created Starfish Media Group, a media company and distributor, named after a story she heard through a missionary in Haiti.

O’Brien shared her desire to focus on stories of people rather than what she calls fluff in the television industry.

“Even though there’s tons to report on in poverty, education, prison reform, those stories don’t get on because there’s this beard story or this skating squirrel they think we should end with,” O’Brien said. “That’s the reality of it.”

As chief executive of her company, O’Brien advises college students interested in working independently to invest time in learning about their own finances.

“My biggest regret is that I never took an accounting class,” O’Brien said. “If you have any interest at all in doing anything independently, understand accounting and understand finance. Understand your value. Do great work. Charge people for your work.”

O’Brien received an overwhelmingly positive response, eliciting a standing ovation from many in the audience.

“It’s interesting how she likes to tell stories and really put them in context because that’s important,” said Susan Fabrazio, an eight year veteran volunteer usher at the Flint Center. “It’s why she’s so successful. And she’s really articulate.”

O’Brien concluded her speech with a reminder of the responsibility media consumers hold in properly representing American people in the news.

“I believe we can do better and I believe that audiences can demand more. I believe there is a desire for equality,” O’Brien said. “I believe there is a love of journalism. I believe people want to go on that search for a truth.”