Univision's María Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos Honored with Cronkite Award

As the push for diversity and equity in the nation’s English-speaking newsrooms pressed on, the co-anchors delivered and reported on important stories for the nation’s Spanish-speaking communities

As I watched María Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos receive the prestigious Walter Cronkite Award from Arizona State University on Tuesday, my feelings welled up into a ball of pride, purpose and nostalgia, with a minor sense of trepidation about the future of journalism.

As the first Latina/o recipients of the Cronkite Award in its 42-year history, both of them set a high journalistic standard for the news they delivered as anchors and in the stories they reported from the field for Univision’s national network broadcast. I felt a tinge of validation that they were finally recognized by establishment media for delivering stories critical to the nation’s Spanish-speaking communities.

Listening to Ms. Salinas and Mr. Ramos acceptance speeches drove home another touchpoint for me: Ms. Salinas was the daughter of Mexican immigrants born in Los Angeles who transformed herself from a green reporter into a polished, articulate and formidable professional journalist - in two languages. She started in an era when women were not looked upon as the credible news leaders they have become.

Similarly, Mexico-born Mr. Ramos was an immigrant himself, leaving his home country as a young man because he didn’t want to be a journalist in a country that didn’t provide the First Amendment protections he sought. His drive and ambition led him to take on many assignments and often in dangerous situations.

At the tail end of his career, he would take a stand against people and policies he regarded as dangerous, authoritarian or racist to become more than a neutral observer. While it opened him up to criticism from an industry that preaches objectivity, he was unapologetic, saying there are times when taking a stand is needed in a democracy. He’s now an independent journalist, author, and a sought after speaker.

He and María Elena worked together delivering the news and covering stories for 40 years and were mainstays in the homes of countless Latino households.

In the end, the award represented something even bigger than the honorees. It was a recognition that Spanish-language news filled a vital information vacuum for our nation’s Spanish-speaking communities. And it spoke to the social reality of this nation – Spanish has been spoken in this country long before it was the U.S. and it will continue to be part of the country’s fabric.

Expecting Latinos to simply give up this language is short-sighted and not a feasible path forward in nurturing our fragile democracy. Instead of lamenting Spanish-speakers, we should revel in their bilingualism, multilingualism even.

As someone who grew up speaking English and watching our English-based networks for news and information, I frequently found myself in Spanish-speaking environments, whether at church, or at the homes of family and friends. And more often than not, the TV sets in those homes were tuned to Univision or Telemundo.

From my earliest days at the university, where I studied journalism, we understood that a more diverse newsroom would lead to fairer coverage for all our city’s residents. That was the point of journalism!

Surveys that tracked newsroom diversity often confirmed the unfortunate reality that real representation among the newsroom corps remained aspirational. Other qualitative studies examined what types of stories were most likely to feature a Latino/a voice. Predictably, those voices were most often found in crime and immigration stories and not in the broader topics that Latina/os are invested in: education, the economy, health care, climate change and politics.

Throughout this decades-long push for parity, María Elena and Jorge were there, doing the work and setting the standard for reporting at the highest levels. We counted on them to keep our Spanish-speaking friends and family informed. And they did so - with courage and dignity.

For that I salute them and ardently hope it does not take another 40 plus years for a Latino/a journalist to receive this important honor.