I remember once being called at the end of 2004, 2005 to go, to cover the tsunami, and I got a call from a, a young woman actually on the assignment desk. And her whole strategy was like, "Listen I've been sent to call you to see, we're trying to send someone to Thailand, but I know you're a mom and you're not gonna want to go and so I just have to run it by you and you know, now you got babies." I was like, "Who more than me wants to get on a plane to Thailand? Oh, me, send me." And I went, you know, and I always felt like you had to joke about these things to kind of get them past people, you know. And then when you got there you better bust your ass and do a good job because everybody was waiting for you to screw up. The first guy, when I got to Thailand, sat me down, pretty sure I'd end up working with a lot. He said, "Listen, so I know you're like this little star and all, but you should know that if I feel like you're not doing your job, I'm gonna call back to the network and tell them." I was so stunned, me not doing my job? The entire history of work had been over doing it. I was just--I was so upset. I was so upset, I went back to my room. In fact I had--I had my luggage. I hadn't even checked into the hotel yet. I was sent to go do a documentary, to do an hour long, sort of special for the network on the tsunami.$$Which was major. That tsunami had everyone--$$Right. One hundred and fifty thousand people died, and I remember--and I was also trying to do my show ['American Morning'] again, same thing, I was like well, I'm here, the news is here, why would you not do your show? And by the way because Thailand's twelve hours ahead, I can do my show from six p.m. to ten p.m., right. So I could shoot all day and then do my show and to have this producer, the first thing he said to me was to explain--"Let me explain to you, little girl--," basically, you know. "I know you're a star, but you should know that I'm going to call back and tell them if you don't do your job." I was so surprised, I was so surprised, you know, and I shot all day, I'd come back, six p.m. I'd say. "I'm available to do my show." I would do my own show with no producer 'cause they didn't send one for the show. I had been a producer, I know how to produce. Set up the lights. I mean because that's sort of how you're successful. And that's the great thing about CNN was that if you did that you know you really could be successful. A lot of your success was in your own hands. I mean I really liked that about CNN, you could--if you were prepared, if you got yourself prepared, if you did a good job reporting, you could be successful, you know, if someone else didn't have to make you, you could do it yourself. I'm trying to think of another good example. It was just--It was just you know, covering the Haitian earthquake, Wolf Blitzer, who I love said, "How do you feel as a mother covering this story?" I was like, "Well, as a reporter, like everybody else who's here reporting on this story, it's a very tough story to report. I'm holding onto babies who are dying in my arms, so yeah, I think it's tough for everybody." And my mother [Estela Marquetti y Mendieta O'Brien] called me and said, "Good for you, good for you. Don't let them call you a mother while you're working, make sure you tell them you're a reporter." You know, so if that's terribly dramatic and tough and whatever, no, but you know, I definitely was very cognizant all the time that as a woman and as a minority there were a lot of people watching to see kind of what you would do; and you know if you screwed it up (makes sound), that was it.$'Black in America'--$$So how did that come about, because--?$$The president of CNN at the time, a guy name Jim Walton, and Jon Klein [Jonathan Klein]--I'm sorry, the president of CNN Worldwide and then the president of CNN Domestic, a guy named Jon Klein, were trying to figure out what do you do for the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King [Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.]. And so they asked me would I be interested in hosting this big series, just be tons of hours on the assassination and then kind of like about black people today, and called 'Black in America.' And so I was intrigued, I wanted to do it, and I said yes, and so it was kind of up to us to shape how it would go, but it was a very--it was not a great experience. It was very stressful. There almost no black people who worked on it, and it was very--very contentious, you know, because a lot of people were like, "Listen the story of 'Black in America' is prison, black men in prison, statistics clearly show this is an issue. The story of Black America is a failure, the story of Black America is unwed mothers to poverty--," and then it's kind of like, I remember one of the producers said to me, and we've interviewed Michael Eric Dyson and he's talked a lot about the statistics and just how dire the situation is for black people, especially black men, and I think we need to do this and this and this. And I was like, and who is the funniest, happiest guy you know? It's Michael Eric Dyson, right. Michael Eric Dyson is not a bummer. If you've ever gone out, you know, hung out with Michael Eric Dyson, you'd laugh your butt off the whole time, right? So I said, so clearly we're not--that's not the story, it's more nuanced than that and if you do a story about, you know, the statistics, show doom. And you're going to call it 'Black in America,' like what? And I remember calling Kim [Kim Bondy], I would send her all the scripts, which was a big no, no. Not to send scripts out you know, and she would go through the scripts and say, "You know I think what you want to do is show the story of a guy, you know--," she said, "listen, I think that the issue of the prison thing is people are successful often connected to people who are struggling, right, so--so it's hard to be very successful because you've always got one arm or one leg being pulled down." So I think that's a more nuanced story. You know how do we tell these stories of success and struggle and we were trying to be very balanced about it like literally to the point of story count, but you know you are terrified sometimes by some of the producers. I remember saying to somebody, "So like, are we getting a really diverse group of people?" "What do you mean?" "I'm getting like dark skinned black people and light skinned black people. I mean who--I haven't done all the shoots, who are we interviewing?" And she said, "Oh, it's just everybody like So and So, everybody like Butch Warren." Butch Warren is who you and I would consider to be a relatively light skinned brother. I mean, oh, my god. We're--everybody looks like Butch Warren? Do you now understand that there's a subliminal message sent, like this is part of the story and you don't even understand that this is a dynamic in the story. It felt very stressful all the time because it was such a big project and I just felt, you know, sometimes that I was arguing with producers all the time.
