“From the Special Investigations Unit”
Soledad O’Brien to speak at Penn State Behrend
CNN special correspondent Soledad O’Brien will speak “From the Special Investigations Unit” at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, on Tuesday, March 18.
O’Brien appears as part of the college’s annual Speaker Series. Her presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. in the McGarvey Commons of the Reed Union Building; admission is free and open to the public.
O’Brien was co-anchor of CNN’s American Morning from 2003 to 2007, and now anchors and reports for the news magazine CNN: Special Investigations Unit. In her Speaker Series presentation she’ll offer an insider’s perspective on investigative broadcast journalism.
In December 2004, O’Brien was among a handful of CNN anchors sent to Puhket, Thailand, to cover the disaster and aftermath of the tsunami that took more than 155,000 lives in that region. In the fall of 2003, she was the only broadcast journalist permitted to travel to Moscow with First Lady Laura Bush.
O’Brien came to CNN from NBC News, where she had anchored the network’s Weekend Today since July 1999. During that time, she contributed reports for The Today Show and weekend editions of NBC Nightly News, and covered such notable stories as John F. Kennedy Jr.’s death, the Columbine school shootings, the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, and Pope John Paul II’s visit to Cuba.
Before joining NBC in New York, O’Brien worked for three years as a local reporter and bureau chief for the NBC affiliate KRON in San Francisco. She began her career as an associate producer and news writer at WBZ-TV in Boston. O’Brien received a local Emmy for co-hosting Discovery Channel’s The Know Zone. She was named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” in 2001, was included in “40 Under 40” lists published by both Crain’s Business Reports and Essence magazines, and has twice been named one of Irish American magazine’s “Top 100 Irish Americans.” She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and also writes a bi-monthly column on parenting for USA Weekend magazine.
“From the Special Investigations Unit” is sponsored by the college’s Student Activity Fee, the Division of Student Affairs, and the Harriet Behrend Ninow Memorial Lecture Series Fund. For more information about O’Brien’s lecture, please phone the Office of Student Activities at 814-898-6171.