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

by Soledad O'Brien;Rose Marie Arce

  Marta’s walnut-colored hair often covers her big sad eyes, but she is a go-getter like no one I’ve met. She lands in immigration detention, a nice version of a jail for kids in Miami. I follow her story as she prepares for detention, only to be rescued by a kindhearted lawyer Michelle Abarca of Florida Immigration Advocacy Center. She finds a way for her to get a visa. A judge places her in foster care with an African-American woman. She is the kind of dream chaser that Miami has attracted for generations. As surely as the Cubans before her transformed that sleepy backwater into a cultural center, I’m certain Marta too will make her mark. She texts me sometimes and lets me know her grades. She is a ghost in the immigration debate—a striver, a dreamer, a kid who didn’t know better. She is not here to take anyone’s job or in defiance of the law. She’s just a girl who wanted her mother. And when she couldn’t find her, she made a life for herself.

  About a month after Latino in America airs, Lou Dobbs leaves CNN. He says that being a journalist is no longer enough. He wants a shot at tackling the nation’s problems and hints he might run for office. He later even tells a Spanish-language TV station that he supports creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. CNN releases him from his contract so he can carry his “banner of advocacy journalism” elsewhere.

  CNN creates a new unit for me after Latino in America. They call it In America and they staff it with fourteen people. The idea is to let me grow this concept of allowing voiceless communities a chance to speak. I also want to chart the journeys of marginalized individuals, to show them as people, not as issues or topics of debate. I pack my office and move to another floor where I can sit with my new colleagues. I don’t find out until later that I’m actually sitting in Lou Dobbs’s old office. I’m glad I never criticized him. Because now the pressure is on me.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MISSION TO HAITI

  One of the things about covering news is that you are constantly losing your footing. One minute nothing is happening; the next minute everything is coming undone. That’s the way it felt on January 12, 2010, just a day after most of my staff is hired for the new In America unit. We feel slightly aimless and CNN is still searching for an executive producer to run the unit. The staff is working from desks that are set far away from each other, assembling boxes for our big move. The producers are brimming with ideas. Everyone is anxious about what this new assignment will mean. I have no idea what to tell anyone. I know we have an extraordinary opportunity, and that’s good enough for me. I am excited about all the new communities we can explore: gays, conservatives, Muslims, women, and onward. Right now we’re doing nothing. Then I walk through the newsroom just before 5 p.m. and everything suddenly changes.

  The newsroom in the New York office of CNN on Columbus Circle is set up almost like a theater. There are rows of interconnected desks that all face a small stage area in the front with banks of TV screens. There are managers facing the opposite direction with the screens behind them. It looks a bit like Mission Control running a moon shot from Houston, except that instead of looking out over the launching pad the staff have their backs to the most spectacular view of Central Park you’ve ever seen. When a major news item rolls in over the wire service, a soft beep emerges from the terminals. Every head tilts down to read the wire, then snaps back up to see how quickly the network gets the latest news onto TV This time the news is so big the beeps merge into a solid tone that is menacingly insistent. Eyes pop wide open and lips part. Then someone shouts: “We need crews!”

  It’s quickly clear what’s going on. A massive earthquake estimated to be of magnitude 7.0 had struck fifteen miles west of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Early reports say the damage is so intense that a plume of dust covers the city for twenty minutes. The size of the quake and its location mean there will be bodies. The poverty of the island means this can only be a major disaster—something along the lines of Hurricane Katrina or the tsunami in Indonesia, maybe even worse. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world; its government and infrastructure are already fractured. The country depends heavily on foreign aid, is patrolled by a UN peacekeeping force, and has suffered two major hurricanes in the last six years. The buildings are so poorly designed that a school collapsed all on its own in 2008 and ninety people died. There is no doubt in our newsroom that this will be a major story CNN, more than any other network in the world, ignites when there is big international news. Everyone is on the phone instantly, trying to get us into Haiti.

  The people on my fledgling staff are anxious. Our unit is called In America and the biggest story of the year is unfolding outside the United States. “This is CNN. When something like this happens, you need to be there. It’s when people watch us most, when viewers count on CNN. It’s why we work here,” one of my producers tells me. I am dying to go. The newsroom duties just vanish at moments like this. I’m a journalist. I have a perspective on how to tell the human story that is unique. I won’t go and do what everyone else is doing. I will add something more. I need to be there. But how am I going to get in?

  At the moment no one is asking me to go. The focus is on getting Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta into the earthquake zone. That makes total sense. Anderson lives to cover these disasters ; his is the voice of immediate distress. Sanjay needs to be there because there is obviously going to be an enormous medical component to this story They also have shows. I am the anchor of a long-form unit that is only twenty-four hours old. Getting me into Haiti is important but it won’t happen instantly and I’m just chomping at the bit.

  I grab my producers and we go from office to office. The bosses shake their heads as if to say, “We get it. Just hold on!” My associate producers call anyone they know who has any connection to Haiti. Reports stream in about the extent of the damage. The presidential palace is gone. The UN mission and the main cathedral are gone. The head of the UN mission and archbishop are said to have perished. CNN has this brilliant service called iReport where regular folks can e-mail photos and videos and help us tell a story when we’re not there. The iReports from Haiti are stunning, streets full of bodies and rubble and people screaming and running around in fear.

  The earthquake hit before most people left work. Children are still in many schools and stores are full. In the first hours of a natural disaster, figures on the number of deaths are wild guesses and are usually inflated. But this time, everyone in my newsroom shares that same sick feeling that the first estimates of a quarter of a million dead might just stick.

  I go home that night and want to scream up at the sky How unimaginably awful it must be in Haiti. I want to be there. I want to help in the way reporters can help. I want to spread the word of what the people need. Instead, I walk down the snowy streets of New York and text my producers about ideas on how to get in. I know the musician and humanitarian Wyclef Jean from my work on Black in America. He is probably the best-known Haitian in the United States and a man with a firm commitment to his home country I reach out, hoping I can travel to Haiti with him. I try everyone I know with a plane or helicopter. At 10:00 p.m., Anderson goes live on CNN from New York with Wyclef Jean as a guest. Wyclef reaches across the anchor desk and offers to go in with Anderson. There goes that idea. I spend most of the evening fuming by BlackBerry to one person or another until exhaustion takes over.

  By the next day it’s clear CNN has beaten the other American networks into Haiti and commandeered one of the only habitable hotels. They are sending in a “flyaway” satellite dish and supplies. They are already sending back video via technology called a BGAN, a laptop with satellite capacity that allows you to compress video and send it. The live shots are a bit pixilated when reproduced on the air, but the roughness seems appropriate in this case. This is one of those moments when CNN’s news-gathering strength on these stories is just remarkable. Anderson Cooper is the first American TV reporter coming live from Haiti. His reports are extremely disturbing. I can see that look in his eyes that I’d seen in the repo
rting from Indonesia and New Orleans.

  There is an emotional line you cross as a reporter from feeling an embarrassing thrill at the magnitude of the story you are telling to experiencing a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. There is no thrill in this man’s eyes. I know him well enough to see that he is shaken.

  My frustration is taking its toll on my family. At some point Sofia says with exasperation, at the dinner table, “Somebody better send Mommy to Haiti.” The only thing worse than a last-minute departure is no departure at all. As young as she is, Sofia’s been around long enough to know there will be no peace till I go. I put my kids to sleep that night focused on how to get into Haiti.

  A few days later, Rose and I visit the offices of our Senior Vice President of Newsgathering, Nancy Lane, a true news junkie who has been with CNN for many years. I make my case again. “Nancy, you know if you send us you’re going to get stories no one else will think to do.” She nods her head like I’m stating the obvious. Within twenty-four hours, another of our bosses, Senior Vice President of Programming Bart Feder, gives us a green light and urges us to focus hard on something no one else is doing. He wants us to come back with something special so the pressure is on. We are bound for Haiti.

  We leave on a chilly New York morning loaded down with survival gear and enough bug spray to kill giant swarms of critters. We have a dozen jars of Vicks VapoRub. If you shove enough of it up your nose it can overwhelm the smell of decaying bodies. It’s a trick photographers in Iraq have passed along. Rose and I had been told we’d pick up one of the photojournalists already working in Port-au-Prince. So it is just us and this wild plan to fly into Santo Domingo and drive overnight in a convoy carrying food and water and generators to our colleagues. No one is sure what the security situation will be and our guards look nervous. One guy keeps complaining that he’d been promised a weapon but didn’t have one. Neither of us wants to drive so we hit the ground in Santo Domingo trying to find another way in.

  The actor Vin Diesel had been on our plane into the Dominican Republic with his sister. They help fund a program for budding filmmakers in the DR and Haiti in coordination with the president of the Dominican Republic. They are going see if their young filmmakers have survived the quake. Vin is a handsome and muscle-bound action movie star. We met ten years ago when I was anchoring Weekend Today, and even though his films like The Fast and the Furious and xXx are meant for teenage boys, I am a huge fan. In those ten years he has grown into a major movie star, but our real connection is the color of our skin—he’s a mix of something, too. We never discussed it.

  Vin’s sister falls into this category of people who use their association with the rich and famous to create and pass forward goodness in the world. She helps her brother establish charities and looks for people to help. She’s delightful and gives her brother a bigger sense of purpose beyond making action flicks. The two of them decide they can help me get into Haiti—so they ask the Dominican president if his helicopters flying into Port-au-Prince might have room for two more. The action hero takes action. It’s why I love this guy

  A few hours later we are in the air on a military chopper. One thing we learn quickly about Haiti is that it operates more on rumor than hard fact. Whispering erupts in a crowd and a mass of people rush forward even if they don’t know what they’re rushing toward. There are always reports on fresh incoming dangers, perceived and imagined. In this country it’s always been somewhat like this; in the midst of a natural disaster, it is even worse.

  We leave Santo Domingo with a flight plan that calls for us to make a stop in the border town of Jimani, where refugees are rumored to have amassed. But when we set down, the biggest commotion is from all the Haitian boys fighting to get Vin Diesel’s autograph. There are international aid organizations coming through on their way to Port-au-Prince. A small number of injured Haitians have been taken to a hospital on the Dominican side, but there is not much else. We fly out over the road we were supposed to drive into Haiti on. It had been billed as treacherous, but as far as we can see it’s paved and has little traffic. We smile at each other, unable to speak over the roar of the helicopter rotors. Maybe Port-au-Prince will be the same way Then one of the Dominican pilots writes on a notepad la zone, the zone, and points up ahead.

  I feel my mouth drop open to suck in air. When something is this shocking you need more oxygen to help you process what you’re seeing. Port-au-Prince simply looks flattened. A thick layer of concrete dust hovers above the entire city. The silence coming from down below is disturbing, like the silence at a wake that will eventually be interrupted by a long wail. Nothing seems to be moving. Every now and then a clearing appears and a smattering of makeshift tents dots the landscape. The helicopter flies lower and banks so we can get a better look and take some pictures. The few people walking around don’t even look up at the sound. It is like looking down on zombies. Tarps are strewn everywhere, covering mysterious mounds of things we can’t see. You can make out people sifting aimlessly through rubble. So many normal things are missing—traffic, commotion, trees, lights, children. There is so much cream-colored concrete with all its surfaces facing upward that the sun reflects off Port-au-Prince. The glare is blinding and I have to keep blinking my eyes to keep looking. I don’t want to look. I have to look. I can’t look. I look. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. None of us in the helicopter can look at each other. I look down one last time before we land. Then I can’t look anymore.

  The Dominican embassy in Port-au-Prince has its own landing pad. I don’t even want to think about the fact they have needed a private way to escape, given the history between these two countries. We are greeted there by multiple security guards and drivers hired by CNN. CNN doesn’t know what to expect and they are ready for riots, looting, and violence of all types. From the moment we move onto the streets of the city, it’s clear to me we’re unlikely to see any of that. The people look shattered, sad, exhausted, not desperate or angry There is not enough life left in anyone for violence right now. People are desperately searching for survivors in the rubble, collecting remains, and looking for places to sleep or get a drink of water. The streets that are open have little traffic. The air smells odd, not like human remains but of something unnatural and abnormal, like what you might expect to smell at an animal shelter. I’m wearing construction boots that look barely strong enough to walk these streets and most of the people have on sneakers or sandals.

  The scene at the CNN workspace couldn’t be more of a contrast. CNN descends on stories like these and erects a mirror of its offices back home. It’s quite amazing. I often think all of us should go run an aid organization, provided we had the same resources. They have trucked in the necessary satellite equipment, a network of computers, generators, and gas and water, a mountain of supplies—everything from PowerBars to tampons. There are fifty employees camped out at La Plaza, an old Holiday Inn that faces a huge square where the massive presidential palace has indeed collapsed. There are not many other habitable places to stay and most of the network reporters are stuck in the airline terminals, reportedly upset that we’ve taken so much space.

  Rose and I drop our stuff in a dirty room at La Plaza and right away venture out into the square to do a story on the emerging tent city in the center of town. All of Port-au-Prince seems to be living on the streets. There have been a series of aftershocks and no one wants to go inside, even if they have someplace to go. A big tarp stretches across trees just outside our hotel. Here, three men and a woman dressed in surgical gear are running a walk-up clinic with the barest of medical supplies. The place is packed with people but there is practically no noise. There is a young boy clutching a mangled toy. A woman lies on the ground nursing a horrific gash to her leg. No one seems to be crying. Their eyes express shock. A trash truck moves slowly past them overloaded with bags. Flies swarm around the patients’ wounds.

  It’s hard to know what to even ask people that look so tired and beaten. What story do you tell h
ere? What story can you tell? People look so broken. We are walking around with two body-guards, two translators, two CNN staffers, and a pair of photographers testing a new 360-degree video camera. But we are not attracting any attention because everyone around us is totally and utterly lost in his or her head.

  We walk deeper into the swarm of people because we’re not sure what else to do. A hose dangling from our hotel offers free water and a long line of mostly women is collecting it in buckets to take into the crowd. Today seems to be the day every woman has decided she needs to clean off her kids. The children stand there naked and silent being doused by soap and water even though they are standing on dirty streets of rubble, trash, and urine. A few people have lit fires but there doesn’t seem to be much cooking. Most folks are just sitting around corralling their children, who seem too scared to move. There is a man selling cell phone charges off a car battery. There are a few small groups of people surrounding badly injured relatives lying in the crowd.

  We approach a woman tending to her father and suddenly the atmosphere shifts dramatically The woman jumps up, startling everyone around her. She begins to yell at us in English, tears streaming down her face. “Someone must help us. What are we to do? Help us, anybody help us,” she yells. Behind her a boy lying on the ground erupts into a spasm that looks like at epileptic fit. We yell over to one of our guards we think has medical training and he moves in to assist her as the boy calms down. As we walk out of the crowd, he looks half annoyed that we’ve involved him at all.

  CNN reporters and producers are arriving at the most horrible moments and are being pressed to pitch in. Anderson’s team has been in particularly difficult situations, arriving at collapsed buildings where people need help digging out, being stopped by people who need a lift to get critically injured victims to makeshift hospitals. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is grabbed by a man needing care for a five-week-old baby We have arrived before any substantial amount of aid. There are a few instances where you feel like you have to get involved, even though reporters are supposed to remain impartial observers. This is one of those stories, which challenges the usual boundaries more than any I’ve seen. Everyone needs help. A country has been severely wounded.