Soledad O’Brien to Host Relaunched Show on Hearst Stations

By Kevin Eck 

Hearst Television Stations is relaunching its weekly magazine style show Matter of Fact with a new anchor.

Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien will debut Sunday, Sept. 11 on Hearst’s local stations in what The Washington Post reports is a new syndication agreement reaching 75 percent of the country.

O’Brien insists in an interview that the new half-hour show, to be produced at the Newseum, won’t be just the typical formula of dueling talking heads spouting talking points. She wants to look beyond the go-to list of political analysts and surrogates (the ones who are “on bookers’ speed dial”) to find guests whose perspectives aren’t typically sought.

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“I’m guessing that a 20-year-old in Baltimore has a lot to say about education in America that’s probably more relevant than … the owner of a charter-school conglomerate,” says O’Brien. “For a segment on police violence, she wonders, why not go to a black officer instead of a police commissioner?”

Hearst launched Matter of Fact with Fernando Espuelas last September.

“We’ll give Americans an information toolkit to understand and engage with political and social issues,” Espuelas said at the time.

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