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Melissa Harris-Perry: You're listening to The Takeaway with Melissa Harris-Perry from WNYC and PRX in collaboration with WGBH radio in Boston.

Award-Winning documentarian, journalist, and author, Soledad O'Brien, has a new project.

Soledad O'Brien: There are so many missing people of color in the US. African Americans remain missing four times longer than white Americans. That number is alarming.

Melissa Harris-Perry: O'Brien's new four-part-HBO series, Black and Missing, follows the work of the Black and Missing Foundation, an organization to bring attention to the underreported stories of missing young Black women. I asked Soledad why in the year 2022, the disappearance of Black women and girls still feels as though it's not taken seriously.

Soledad O'Brien: I think what we wanted to do in this project was to dig into the why, why does the media not care? We know the data shows that the coverage is so much less when you're talking about women of color. Why does law enforcement not act as aggressively as they would if you were talking about white women? Why does sometimes society not seem to care?

Our late great colleague, Gwen Eiffel, is the one who coined the term a missing white woman syndrome. It was so interesting to me as we were working on this project to see the history of that syndrome unfold. The sense, for example, when Natalee Holloway went missing, not just how interested the media was and talking to Natalee's mom, and by the way, I was one of many reporters who interviewed her and my heart broke for her. What an awful thing to be in the middle of.

Not only did law enforcement really, really care about this story and the follow-up but to see regular people mobilized and motivated to jump on a plane and go to Aruba, to search for this young woman, people who had never met the Holloway family at all. I think it was interesting for us to really dive into, why does that drive some random person to go and try to be helpful, and yet with all these other stories, equally compelling about young women, equally as beautiful, equally interesting narratives, it's just media doesn't seem to care. Law enforcement doesn't seem to care.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Is it about a devaluation of Black women and girls through the broader social milieu? Is it a belief that these stories won't carry the same audience? That it's not law enforcement that doesn't care. It's not media that doesn't care, but that they might say, the audience doesn't care. They turn off when the person whose image we show is a little Black girl rather than a little blonde girl.

Soledad O'Brien: I think yes, and I think those two things are interrelated. I think the actual math around that is not data, real data. It's how executives who are themselves most usually middle-aged white men, how they feel in their hearts and we know in our studies of bias that how people feel like, "I'm a good person, but I feel in my heart that our audience wants X, Y, and Z and boy, isn't that interesting how that's exactly what I want." We see that a lot.

What we have found, and I've done and you've done a bunch of these stories over the years, is that what really resonates with people is good storytelling. A story that's well told and interesting will have just as many eyeballs interested in that narrative, but I do think that certainly leadership in news organizations convince themselves. When I worked at CNN is a good example.

When we did our doc series Black in America, I had an executive say to me, and I've told this story a million times, "Listen, just don't make it too black." It was called Black in America, but you know what? Melissa, I knew what he meant and you know what he meant, which was like, "We have an audience and we value them a lot. Do not scare my audience away, Soledad. Do not mess this up." I said, "You got it." Even though it was called Black in America, I knew what the answer had to be. It's not unusual for someone to say, "This girl is pretty and her family is solidly middle class or upper class. This is a story people will care about.

This girl you know what? She's a girl of color, maybe not pretty to me in my eyes. Maybe she lives in a community that's not an interesting community or might be a poor community. I'm confident our audience won't care." I've seen that calculus unfold. I had a guy when I pitched doing a doc once on Poverty in America, said to me, this is a quote, "Ew who'd want to that". That means that his point of view, by the way, on that story was very much, "As an upper-middle-class white dude. I just don't think that applies to me. I don't think it's interesting."

Melissa Harris-Perry: Of course, these missing girls and women, they do matter to somebody. They matter to their families. They matter to their communities, and communities that, by the way, might not even want you to look at them. Go take your eyeballs somewhere else but we do want attention in these moments. Talk to us a little bit about Derrica and Natalie Wilson, the founders of Black and Missing Foundation.

Soledad O'Brien: They matter tremendously to Derrica and Natalie Wilson. I think the fact that those two women exist and are doing yeo men's work, really, work that somebody else, society, should be doing. The two of them do it partly because Derrica has a background in law enforcement so she can bring that insight. Natalie, a background in PR so she understands how to market and push things into the media. I think they would say these women, and in fact, all missing people of color, matter to us tremendously. It's that, that gives a real sense of help and assistance to those families that are usually in the middle of a complete nightmare and a nightmare that nobody frequently seems to want to hear about.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me a little bit about the feedback you've been getting on the series. What are people saying to you?

Soledad O'Brien: What was really interesting was I think I have actually seen some real movement. Organizations have, I think they recognize that they have missed the boat in covering these stories and so there are journalists now who've actually changed their strategies. Again, if you just look at coverage the data will tell you who's getting covered and who's not. I've seen a real pickup in what kinds of stories are being told, I think that's really good. I think there could be more self-analysis and self-awareness. I don't think media's very good at, every day, at the end of the day, let's talk about what we got wrong. Let's talk about where we failed. We could use it, but I don't think we do it very much.

I do think even just raising awareness about why do you not think this story is important both for media and for law enforcement. Then also, Derrica and Natalie have some very specific strategies that they share with the families. Often the families don't like the police, don't trust the police and so they would be the first to say, we have to bridge and help be that conduit. Also, sometimes families don't recognize you need to give a good picture or don't be surprised the picture that airs is something that's terrible. Doesn't look good, is somebody maybe mugging for the camera in some way that you wouldn't want it to be the face of someone you're looking for.

Like there are very tangible and strategic strategies around how to help police and how to help the media do their jobs better. I think the two women are exhausted. They're really literally out there finding people and I was so glad that we were able to raise awareness so that other people could recognize the job that they could do to help Derrica and Natalie do their jobs.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's talk a little bit more about journalism. I so appreciate what you just said that we don't often do the postmortem. We don't do what physicians do after something goes wrong and then they sit down and they look at it with their colleagues and with research and they say, okay, where did we get this wrong? How can we do better next time? I totally want to beat up on the white boy executives who are like, "Oh, this just isn't interesting," but there's also every day we sit in a pitch meeting, we're all pitching to each other, and in part, we are deciding what we're going to air based on let's base it, what we think is interesting. How could we be doing better?

Soledad O'Brien: I think it starts with, as you say, just an analysis. One thing we found after we did Black in America, which was a very expensive doc series was like, what are the lessons learned? What worked? What resonated? We found that the Black audience grew tremendously, makes sense. We marketed it very heavily, but what we really saw was that the white audience grew a lot more, interesting. To me, it's like analyzing the data around what works. You can do that obviously with the minute by minutes, they tell you exactly where do people tune in? Where did you lose people? What was interesting, what was not?

I think also, and now we're having today many more conversations about implicit bias than we had certainly when we were working on that project earlier on in my career, constantly asking yourself, why does this story not make sense to you? Why is this story not interesting to you? Having that out in a meeting where you're really engaging everybody in the room. We, I think, could do better when you allow people to recognize that you can win when you do stories of marginalized communities.

Often, as you know, there's a sense of, oh, if you're doing those stories, you're never going to make it big here in this newsroom. The stories that do well, the stories that get you ahead, the stories that get you the next promotion, those are the stories about the war, those are the stories about law enforcement in the macro. I think you have to have, again, just really tangible conversations. Specifically, talk about those uncomfortable things to dig into the root of how do we do better.

I was on a call this morning with public defenders who are trying to figure out, everybody wants to tell the stories from the police perspective, how do they get into that conversation? The way young reporters are often trained is to read the police blotter, get a relationship with the police. You need to interrupt that and say, "Let me point out to you how it's working, and then let's talk about how to fix it." Then maybe, biggest of all, there has to be a real interest in fixing it, because you and I have both worked in places where there's a lot of lip service, but nobody really wants to fix it. If you don't really want to fix it or you don't really want to examine it, it's never going to change.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It's such a critical point. I sometimes find myself talking to audiences, giving lectures. I will have a critique of media often coming from my own experiences in broadcast cable news. People will say to me, "Well, then where do you get your news? Where do you get your analysis?" I'm pretty unapologetic in the fact that I often say, "Well, do you follow Soledad O'Brien in social media?" [laughs]

I do get a fair bit of it from your Twitter stream. I appreciate the ways that you bring, not an ideological critique, but a journalistic one that so often I'll go there and say, "All right, Soledad's offering a different way a question could have been framed, a different way that a follow-up might have happened." Why do you do that? Why do you give us that insight? I feel like it is a masterclass in interviewing techniques. Again, I'm not ashamed to say, I read a fair bit of it.

Soledad O'Brien: [laughs] I really like the idea of explaining to people how media works, because I think most people don't know. Often The New York Times is a good example. They'll say, "We don't make the news. We just report it." Yes, but it's a zero-sum game. A TV show is a zero-sum game. You have actually a very active role in deciding what you're going to talk about and how you're going to frame it.

I think once you give people the tools to see that this could have been written in a different way, how do you think the story could have been approached? How do you think we're making things more complicated by telling the story this way? I think it's just to teach people about media so that they understand, if you look at it from this point over here, you might be seeing something else. I also like to post pictures of my puppies and occasionally a horse or two.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yes to horses.

Soledad O'Brien: There's so many great people who are doing really good reporting. I often get a little-- People talk about a takedown of an article where I point out, this is bad framing, but I try to elevate people who are doing really interesting work. I try to say, "This is a thread worth reading. This is a really interesting perspective. This thing is just funny. This person is really good. They're very interesting." I certainly try to have my Twitter feed be something that people could read and learn a lot about what's happening in the day. Some of it is bad, but a lot of it is really worth following and looking at.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Are there any outlets or journalists that you think are doing particularly well?

Soledad O'Brien: So many. So many. Local News is having a real resurgence, which I love. I love ProPublica, I love The Hechinger Report. I actually really like The New York Times and The Washington Post. I read everything. You can get access, of course, online. Generally, that's what I'm doing. Remember back in the day when we'd get the stack of papers delivered to us? We're not doing that anymore. I really read everything and I love to be informed.

Then I like to point out, I think the political reporters are really on the struggle bus at this moment because they're trying so hard to get clicks and to get eyeballs and to compete with social media that they're often losing their way, and they've been losing their way for a while. That's an area where they're challenged. Really, New York Times reporting is phenomenal across so many areas. Wall Street Journal, obviously, with a very conservative bent, but boy, they have some very, very interesting articles. I love The Texas Tribune. There's just so many.

With social media today, you can actually start seeing like, "Wow, I like how these people report." I think Atlantic is usually great, sometimes remarkably stupid, but usually pretty great. I think there's a lot of organizations that mostly do good work, and I think most journalists want to do good work, which is why I'd like to see more self-assessment because it feels to me like we want to be better, I want to be better.

I remember when we did our Black in America doc and people would critique it. Some of it was, "You're not Black enough to be telling the story." Some of it was, "How come this story's not in?" It's uncomfortable, it feels awful, but I think you do have to say, "Well, that's a good question. Let's talk about that. Let's actually dig in," so that you can be better and you can do a better job, and go back to what I think the gig is, which is serving your community.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You've been actively parenting at the same time that we're talking about all of these big questions. As someone who's often actively parenting at the same time that I'm trying to make media, can you talk to me a little bit about- I just want to know if there's one big parenting lesson that you took from your own parents and if there is one lesson about life, about democracy, about who we are as a people that you've tried to convey to your own children.

Soledad O'Brien: That's such a great question. I think the big lesson that I got in general from interruptions was from Bryant Gumbel, who really was a master at taking whatever crazy was unfolding because you're parenting while you're trying to do something, and just working it in. Just tell the audience, inform the audience. It happened a lot on CNN where something would happen, you're live and you're life for hours at a time, and you would just realize that people are actually with you if you just fill them in. "Right at this moment, this is happening. That's what you're hearing behind me. Yes, that was the sound of chips about to be opened that I nipped in the bud knowing that your audio folks would kill me."

I think parenting advice that my mom gave was really helpful. She used to say all the time, "Everybody has 24 hours." This idea of you can do everything, which you can do everything, but you get 24 hours, so you probably want to prioritize it. How do you want to spend your 24 hours? Sometimes that 24 hours is spent just on work on a project and sometimes that 24 hours is spent hanging out with your family and reengaging with that. I always start thinking of it that way, that you're not competing with other people on that front. You're just, what are your priorities and how do you want to spend that time? That really helped, I think, focus me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: While you're here, I will ask for one more piece of advice. It's because we have a young digital editor who was just beside himself with excitement that you were going to be a guest on the show, as were all of us. Do you have a piece of advice for young people entering into the wild media world that we're in now about how to approach their careers in such a way that allows them to be doing the self-reflective and valuable and community-based journalism that I think so many of us want to do?

Soledad O'Brien: I think often my advice to very young people who are entering big corporate media in some capacity, which I think is great, you learn a lot, you learn a lot, and you have to go into it saying, "I'm here to learn a lot. I'm not always here to open my mouth. I'm here to contribute, add value," but you know what? Sometimes holding your tongue and seeing where the paths are, where the opportunities are, who's an advocate and who's not, who's going to help you with your career and who's not.

I have found often young people want to come in and say, "I'm going to explain to people how they should do it." I'm like, "Oh, no, hold off. You've been here for six months." Just see where the opportunities are. At the same time, work on those things you're passionate about on your own time. You want to do a podcast, do a podcast. You want to be shooting, learn how to shoot well. You can do all of that. You can be shooting a doc while you're also working in your corporate job climbing the ladder, because at some point the two of those things are going to intersect and you're going to say, "You know what an interesting story is, I would do it this way."

Everyone will listen, because you built up enough goodwill and you've also got a lot of expertise in what you've been doing on your own. It really is just constantly, keep the hustle going, sometimes keep your mouth shut but your eyes wide open to understand where all the bodies are buried, the lay of the land, and just keep grinding away at the things that you're passionate about. You will get there and you'll have to just figure out what's the right place to be doing that work.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Soledad O'Brien, I just also want to say how much you've always been a north star for me. You helped to make me far more courageous, far more brave, both when I'm working and when I'm not working in the world of journalism and media. Thank you for that and thank you for joining us.

Soledad O'Brien: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

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