Today, we’d like to introduce you to Carolyn O’Neil.
Hi Carolyn, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I moved to Atlanta in 1982 to start a job as a news reporter covering food and nutrition news for the then-only two-year-old CNN. We were to be the first and only TV news network to cover the food and nutrition beat full time with a story every day and soon after to be joined by a half-hour news feature weekend program called On The Menu. I went from being a reporter to a correspondent, senior correspondent to executive producer, managing editor, and anchor. We did it all at CNN!!!
I was at CNN for nearly 18 years, covering food, nutrition, and cuisine. When nutrition was an emerging consumer topic, chefs were just becoming “celebrity chefs.” I’ve interviewed most of the famous chefs in the nation and the world and traveled to their kitchens. My beat also meant covering agriculture, food production, health care, and food policy news. I used to joke that my food beat was everything from pate to pesticides. That was true. I won several awards for my broadcast media reporting on food, nutrition, and cuisine, including three James Beard Foundation Awards and awards from the American Heart Association, the National Restaurant Association, and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
I was trained as a registered dietitian nutritionist. I earned a Master’s Degree in Nutrition Communications because my career goal was to teach public health nutrition via television and other media platforms. Since my CNN days, I’ve authored two cookbooks and written a weekly column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called “Healthy Eating Out.” I continue to write about food, travel, and nutrition. I’m on the Delta Air Lines Culinary Council and a member of the invite-only Google Food Lab. I’m on the nutrition review board for Southern Living Magazine and Forbes Health. My travel writing appears in VIE Magazine and other publications.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
CNN was a work in progress and since I was there in the early days I had to learn how to be an entrepreneur within a company. We were expected to solve our problems in the field and the studio. Transitioning to print media was a challenge because I was used to having a video to tell part of the story. It’s funny now that print media relies on video as well on their digital platforms. Writing a book was a tough journey, requiring me to navigate the complicated publishing world.
My first book, The Dish on Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous! Co-authored by Densie Webb, PhD RD, was published by Simon & Schuster Atria Books. Having a big publisher was exciting, but you must do most of the promotion yourself! That was a rocky road but my experience in broadcast television helped get me booked on TV shows nationwide.
Another struggle being a full-time new correspondent who travels domestically and internationally, churning out a half-hour show each week and being responsible for five new stories per week, was being a mom to two kids. I traveled a lot, and they got used to being the only kids whose moms couldn’t be at the school parties or games. When I left CNN (after 18 years), I made a point of always being at their events, and it was funny because they said, “MOM! It’s like you’re always here!!’
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe you can tell us more about your work next?
As a journalist, I’ve always specialized in food and health reporting. My credentials as a registered dietitian nutritionist with a Master’s in Communication helped me finish the job! My extensive travels with CNN also allowed me to gain credibility as a travel journalist. I anchored a show on CNN called Travel Now for several years.
You can’t travel without focusing on the food and culture of a place, and you can’t report on food without recognizing the global roots of foodways and ingredients. What makes me the proudest is that I helped launch the specialty of food and nutrition reporting in the media, certainly TV network news. I spent time mentoring interns who wanted to do the same, and it’s been great following their career paths in nutrition communications.
What makes me happiest, because you never know who’s watching, is when people tell me how much they learned from watching my CNN stories on food and nutrition. Later on, I learned that videos of my stories were used in college classrooms to teach nutrition students and even in elementary schools in Trinidad to teach healthy eating! It helped when chefs recognized me when I visited their restaurants worldwide!
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
It was a risk leaving CNN to do my own thing. However, I learned that my reputation and the relationships I built while at CNN were valuable in attracting new opportunities in the food and media worlds.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.carolynoneil.com
- Instagram: @carolynoneil
- Facebook: @carolynoneil
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-o-neil-6a2992/
- Twitter: @carolynoneil
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTnMMgi-tGlGW1JWJKBK7zw
