Soledad O'Brien on 'Gay in America'

Gay couple Gary and Tony have fought for gay rights their entire lives... and now they want to have a baby. A compelling story for CNN special correspondent Soledad O'Brien and the first documentary of her 'Gay in America' series: 'Gary and Tony Have a Baby'.

When I spoke with Soledad she'd just come in from New Orleans, or so she thought. She'd been traveling with her nine-year-old, one of four kids, and fresh off trips to Chile, Haiti, and the location of one of six 'In America' docs that will air this year. Hard to keep track, because there are so many stories to tell, like that of Gay and Tony's. Soledad talks about the 'In America' series, a new format of story-telling and why she's what she calls the limiting factor.

Ramon Johnson: The 'Black in American' and 'Latino in America' series were really the first time Primetime Americans were given an in-depth look at Black and Latino culture. Who was the 'In America' series made for?

Soledad O'Brien: You know, people always ask that and it's funny because I never think of it in those ways. People say, who do you want to watch this? Everybody. I want everybody to watch this. That's a consistently asked question. I find that funny because that's very different than how I approach it. What we really wanted to do was do an in-depth look at a community that was sort of ignored; that would pop up here and there on the evening news—normally when you're talking about crime for black people or Latinos often when we're talking about immigration. But, the stories themselves weren't necessarily well-informed or didn't have a lot of context to them. So we thought if we put things under this umbrella where we looked at a community in-depth in its nuance—not positively spun stories or negatively spun stories—just genuine stories about people's experience, you really could do some interesting reporting. And so that's what I was sent out to do for 'Black in America' and 'Latino in America.'

We broke off the unit this year and 'In America' itself became sort of what I was doing. With 'Gary and Tony Have a Baby' we really were thinking, well what's the experience? What is the pathway of someone's story? At the same time, we started looking at stories instead of doing surveys of communities over six hours like we did in the first 'Black in America' or four hours like we did in the second 'Black in America.' We decided to tell a single story.

So, in 'Black in America' Three, for example, you will see a single story about one pastor, one church, one community, and we did that with 'Gary and Tony Have A Baby.' We wanted to see just one story unfold and follow the process of these two guys who've been together a long time and decided they wanted to expand their family and have a kid.

So for me, it's just a really good opportunity to talk about these stories that frankly don't get a lot of coverage and certainly there aren't a lot of documentaries done on them. That was the philosophy, the idea that if it's well-done and a well-told story people will want to watch it.

RJ: What's interesting about these stories is, culturally, whenever a series comes up the community says: Oh my goodness, it's finally our turn. We're represented on CNN and all of America can see what it's like to be us. I asked some folks about the 'Gary and Tony' doc—some with experiences that are far removed from theirs—and one thing that was consistently asked was, why one hour and not four?

SO: That's such and interesting question. Such a valid question, and it's actually why you sort of move away from the survey because in a survey people say, well where's my story? I'm a Peruvian from Texas. You don't have that? I'm Pakistani. When are you going to do Pakistani in America? And you have to say: People, it's not about that; it's about a story and a story goes as long as it goes.

To me, Gary and Tony's story was a one-hour story. What's so interesting is the real answer behind that is just time. For 'Black in America,' I spent an entire 18 months just doing one documentary and I cannot turn out one documentary a year. I can't do that. In fact, this year I will have done six documentaries, some of them two hours in addition to going to Chile and Haiti to cover the earthquakes and doing any breaking news and anything they need me on. It's a logistical thing and I am the limiting factor.

Some people do documentaries by having someone host it. The [hosts] walk in at the beginning, they walk through at the end. I'm in the whole thing and if you're going to do a good job and really be on top and be part of the telling of the story, you have to be in it and you have to be there. There's no great big plot behind it. I would agree with him. The nice thing about having this unit and this big umbrella is being able to say, yup, 'Gay in America' in the end is going to be 20 hour long documentaries. Gary and Tony is not the story of the gay community. Gary and Tony is the story of Gary and Tony and their search for a surrogate. Period. End of story.

RJ: We're in a time when gay rights is being compared to civil rights. How do you feel about that, especially given your parents were married during a time when interracial marriage was illegal?

SO: You know, it's very interesting to me. I ask a lot of questions about that because I find that intriguing. I met a number of African-Americans who were involved in the civil rights movement. For example...