An event commemorating Doctor Martin Luther King Junior’s Legacy will feature award-winning journalist, Soledad O’Brien.
O’Brien’s talk entitled “Diversity on TV, Behind the Scenes and in our Lives,” kicks off the event at RIT at noon Thursday.
The reporter best known for the documentary film series “Black in America” explained the news media played a role in shedding light on the abuse of civil rights leaders in the south during the 1960s.
“Black media had been covering those conflicts for a long time. It wasn't until the New York Times and the white media came into Birmingham, did it really then become a national story. And then the framing of it was, "Is this injustice?" not just "What's happening here in Birmingham?" I think that that's really critical,” said O’Brien.
O’Brien stresses the value of telling untold stories, including shedding a light on the invisible problem of poverty in America.
“It's important. It's important to the direction that the nation's going. It’s important to our values, what we believe. There's tons of reporting now, tons of data on poverty. And very interesting. They just had a report out that shows half the nation's children in public school are in poverty. There are huge implications to that. Huge,” said O’Brien
O’Brien is also featured in the documentary series A Path Appears, that discusses the subject of poverty, on WXXI-TV Monday night at 10.