Soledad O'Brien

CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O'Brien will host CNN Presents: Black in America, a series of investigative reports, beginning with a special devoted to the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death called "Eyewitness to Murder – The King Assassination," April 3 at 9 p.m. Speaking by phone from New York in her unmistakably cheerful and warm voice, O'Brien described the perils of a journalist's life (too much time in airports, too much Panda Express) and what America wants: "I have never once had a question where someone says, 'Tell me more about Paris Hilton.'"

This month the Morehouse School of Medicine is honoring you as "a catalyst for social change." Do you think television journalists primarily shine light on social issues, or can they create change as well? I think both. I think shining light on a social issue sometimes is really the first step in creating change. Certainly in Hurricane Katrina ... step one is you shine a light, and people say, "Oh my god, I had no idea of the poverty and conditions. I had no idea what was happening there."

In addition to your upcoming CNN special commemorating the anniversary of MLK's assassination, you also recently devoted a special to his private papers. What insights into the man did those papers give you? It was very interesting to look at the words he chose, and why he would change them. That to me provides amazing insight into anybody's thinking, whenever somebody picks out a sentence, and then rewrites it, or crosses out a word to make it stronger. And he had such incredible guts. I think today there's nobody like him.

Barack Obama has brought race into the public discourse again in a really huge way. What do you think the current discussion of race reflects about where we are as a nation? Here's a thing that's been staring Americans in the face forever and here is the first time any politician has talked very bluntly about race. It's just too high stakes politically. You don't want to say the wrong thing. It's just better not to talk about it. I thought that speaks volumes about where we are today. I thought the [Obama] speech was interesting and was very nuanced. I thought one of the parts that was very interesting, very true, was there are a lot of white people who feel things haven't been handed to them.

What do you think is the most underreported issue in American news right now? Poverty, because it really is connected to everything. Nobody represents [the poor] well in Congress. The fact that there are kids in this country dying of starvation is obscene. And you walk by anybody's house in suburbia that's bursting with food that they throw out. And more than that even, is those people in that house would love to give the food to the people who need it. I've interviewed enough people to know that Americans have this incredible heart.