NAHJ to Induct Juan Gonzalez, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, Francisco Ramirez into Hall of Fame

Media contact: Iván Román, NAHJ Executive Director, (202) 662-7178 e-mail: iroman@nahj.org

Washington, D.C. – Two of today’s most respected media diversity champions credited with helping to change the industry and a 19th century editor who broke new ground in his era will be inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Hall of Fame during this summer’s UNITY ‘08 convention - the nation’s industry’s largest gathering of journalists.

New York Daily News Columnist Juan González, University of Texas at Austin Professor Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, Ph.D. and Francisco P. Ramírez, editor of El Clamor Público, Los Angeles’ first Spanish-language newspaper will be inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame. This year’s NAHJ Hall of Fame Gala starts at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 25th in the Chicago Ballroom of the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, 301 East North Water Street, Chicago, Illinois during the UNITY ‘08 convention.

Juan Gonzalez

Francisco P. Ramirez

Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez

González, co-host of Democracy Now! and a columnist of the New York Daily News, is a former NAHJ president, co-founder of UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc. and a fierce advocate against media consolidation, which NAHJ believes hurts minority media ownership and the quality of journalism. Rivas-Rodriguez, also an NAHJ founder, created student training programs 20 years ago emulated today by other journalism associations and strongly advocates for improved coverage and inclusion of Latinos in media, most recently in the Ken Burns' documentary THE WAR aired on PBS last fall.

Ramírez founded El Clamor Público in the mid 19th century when he was 17 years old, shortly after California became part of the United States, giving a voice to long-established Mexicans faced with a new reality of becoming strangers in their own land. His newspaper, whose title in English means The Public Outcry, was a forceful advocate for equal rights for people of all races at a very turbulent time.

Created in 2000, NAHJ’s Hall of Fame is reserved for journalists and industry pioneers whose national or local efforts have resulted in a greater number of Latinos entering the journalism profession or have helped to improve news coverage of the nation’s Latino community.

“Our Hall of Fame Gala is one of NAHJ’s greatest traditions when we pause to celebrate the giants of our industry,” said Iván Román, NAHJ’s Executive Director. “Because of Juan and Maggie’s foresight and their activism, NAHJ is a leader in many ways - from creating innovative programs that serve as models for the entire industry to speaking out on Capitol Hill on legislation that impacts minority media owners. Fewer people know the story of Francisco P. Ramírez, but once you hear it, you will be inspired.’’

With the induction of González, Ramírez and Rivas-Rodriguez, there are now 22 NAHJ Hall of Famers. Past honorees include such pioneering journalists as Rubén Salazar, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the news director of KMEX who was killed in East Los Angeles, and Ignacio E. Lozano, Sr., who founded La Opinión, the nation’s largest Spanish-language daily newspaper. Last year’s inductees were Cecilia Alvear, a former NAHJ president and retired senior producer for NBC; George Ramos, a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter with the Los Angeles Times, and Rigo Chacón, three-time Emmy winner and president of Rigo Chacón and Associates (RCA).

For more information about the NAHJ Hall of Fame Gala and about the UNITY’08 Convention to take place from July 23-27, 2008 in Chicago, please visit www.nahj.org.

Hall of Fame sponsors to date include State Farm Insurance.

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For ticket information, please click here.

Biographical information about the inductees

Juan González is a prize-winning columnist at the New York Daily News, Brooklyn College instructor, author and co-host of Democracy Now!, a daily TV/radio news program airing on over 700 stations. Hispanic Business magazine named Gonzalez twice on its annual list of the nation’s 100 Most Influential Hispanics. A co-founder of NAHJ and UNITY Journalists of Color, Gonzalez was NAHJ president from 2002-2004. During his term, NAHJ received a $1 million grant from the McCormick Foundation - the largest grant the association has ever received – to start the Parity Project, in which English-language newsrooms and Latino community members partner to improve coverage and boost the number of Latinos in the local journalism ranks. Today, the number of Latino journalists hired through the Parity Project is now at 181. Gonzalez has also been at the forefront of the media consolidation issue, speaking out during his presidency and this past fall on Capitol Hill. He urged lawmakers not to rewrite the media ownership rules until they know how the change would impact minority media owners.

Francisco P. Ramírez was a teenager in 1855 when he founded El Clamor Público (The Public Outcry) Los Angeles’ third newspaper and the city's first one to be printed mainly in Spanish. A 2005 Los Angeles Times article said Ramírez adopted a surprisingly literary flair to his writing, quoting Latin poets and philosophers along with abolitionists of the day, with virtually no formal education. He has also been described as the self-styled champion of Spanish Americans in California as his publication chronicled the struggles of Mexicans facing the new reality of becoming part of the United States just a few years before. He believed in racial equality and ran editorials condemning lynching. After four years, the paper went bankrupt and Ramirez moved to Mexico for an editing job. In 1862, he returned to California as editor of San Francisco’s La Voz del Nuevo Mundo. Later, he served as Los Angeles’ postmaster and then became a state translator. Eventually, he practiced law in Los Angeles and was a successful lawyer and leading citizen until his death in 1908.

Source: Felix Gutierrez, Professor of Journalism and Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California

Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, Ph.D. is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and founder and director of the U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project. Rivas-Rodriguez gained national prominence after leading protests in 2007 against the PBS documentary about World War II. The film, which originally had excluded the stories of Hispanic veterans, was eventually modified. Her efforts helped force PBS and other media outlets to pay greater attention to contributions of Hispanic veterans. A former journalist who worked for major newspapers and a Dallas TV station, Rivas-Rodriguez developed the model for a student-produced convention newspaper in 1988 now used by several professional journalism organizations to give students a taste of “real time” journalism. A founding member of NAHJ, Rivas Rodriguez is the recipient of numerous awards including NAHJ’s 2007 Leadership Award. She also received the Rubén Salazar Award for Communications from the National Council of La Raza in 2007.