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Anchor speaks to ISU students about mentoring

By Jana McConnell
Greenlee Web Team

A national television journalist and anchorwoman credited mentors for her career success and stressed their importance in young peoples’ lives.

Soledad O’Brien, anchor of CNN’s “American Morning,” shared her experiences being mentored. She visited Iowa State University on Oct. 27.

“Mentoring is critical to success in the workplace,” O’Brien said. “It’s been absolutely critical in my career success.”

First mentors

O’Brien found her first mentor when she started in television news in 1989 as an intern whose job was to remove staples from the station’s bulletin boards.

She also got coffee for her boss who would measure the brown color of the coffee to the color of her desk to make sure the coffee was how she liked it. Sometimes, O’Brien would have to go up and down stairs three or four times before getting it right.

Although O’Brien admitted she found this irritating, she said she learned a lot because it was a way of “showing I could live up to somebody’s exacting standards.”

Another mentor showed her the importance of making sure to always have all the facts on a story and not just go along with what everyone else is reporting if it doesn’t feel right.

“She taught me it’s okay to be the lone voice sometimes. It’s okay to be unpopular sometimes,” O’Brien said. “That’s a very important lesson to learn as a journalist.”

O’Brien said her parents are some of her best mentors.

She spoke about the problems her African-American and Cuban mother and her Caucasian father encountered dating because interracial couples were not accepted.

Her parents in 1958 had to drive to another state to get married because interracial marriage was prohibited where they lived. O’Brien said this hardship showed her to “learn to sidestep issues and obstacles people place in your way.”

Her mentors today

Even during times when she’s reporting on major events, O’Brien said she still checks in with her mentors.

O’Brien said covering Hurricane Katrina was difficult because it was emotionally draining talking to children and seeing bodies float by in the water. O’Brien said she was afraid of diminishing the coverage of the event by making it too personal. Her solution was to call a mentor and ask about how her reporting compared with other media outlets.

O’Brien also relied on a mentor while she was in Thailand in December covering the aftermath of the tsunami.

“The grief was absolutely palpable,” O’Brien said. “The people were like zombies.”

O’Brien said the toughest interview she ever conducted was during the tsunami coverage when she talked with a father who had lost his son.

The man had a hold of his son during a wave that came into their bungalow, and he adjusted his hand to get a better grip on his son, but instead he lost his hold, and his son popped out of his arms and the father never saw him again.

These kinds of stories and images haunted O’Brien when she went to bed making sleep difficult, she said.

She decided to call a mentor who helped her to talk about all the emotions and would tell her jokes to clear her mind so she could get up and do everything again the next day.

Mentoring tips

Before ending her address and taking questions, O’Brien gave mentoring tips:

• Be open to criticism
• Follow through with advice
• Follow up on progress
• Remember to make the mentor proud to have helped

O’Brien’s speech was sponsored by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, the Committee on Lectures (funded by Government of the Student Body) and the Center for American Intercultural Studies. O’Brien is the fall Mary Louise Smith Scholar.

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Last updated: Nov. 3, 2005
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