Soledad O'Brien Assumes New Role At CNN

Soledad O'Brien has worked with CNN since 2003, but the prominent news anchor announced yesterday (Feb. 21) that she's moving on to focus on launching her own production company.

The New York Times reports that O'Brien will still oversee documentaries for CNN, including the "In America" series, as part of a production partnership with the network. The change has been a long time coming, since the new head of CNN, Jeff Zucker, announced that he'd be replacing Starting Point, a few months ago.

In previous interviews, O'Brien mentioned her disdain for the lack of assistance "Starting Point" received: "Jeff made it clear that he had a very different vision, and we're going to see how that unfolds. It was never about would I stay or would I go... We did not get a lot of promotion. We did not get a lot of marketing. We weren't fully staffed."

Rumor has it that Erin Burnett will take O'Brien's CNN slot, a move that media critic Jay Rosen called "journalistically insane." Soledad has stated that she's happy about her decision and looking forward to kicking off her production company, Starfish Media Group.

The change will be effective this spring.