I refuse to be discouraged, says Oprah Winfrey

Washington: Oprah Winfrey has said that she refuses to be discouraged by anything and doesn’t want to be distracted by either praise or criticism. Her long-anticipated weekly interview show ‘Oprah’s Next Chapter’ will debut on Jan 1, which is the first anniversary of her network OWN. “I refuse to be discouraged. This is the thing about being well known and trying to do anything. When I did ‘The Color Purple’, Steven Spielberg taught me you can’t believe the good [press] unless you’re also willing to believe the bad,” she said. “That’s a powerful lesson for not getting distracted by praise — or criticism. You can’t allow either of them to affect your vision of what you know is true for you,” she said. “That’s exactly how I feel right now. My thing is stay on course so you can stay the course. OWN was launched as a 24/7 cable network barely a year ago and Winfrey says that the experience has been ‘challenging and eye opening’. “It’s been challenging and eye opening. I walked in thinking, ‘Oh, it’s going to be about programming.’ But there’s so many more layers to building this business, including trying to get affiliates and advertisers,” Fox News quoted her as telling TV Guide magazine. ANI