Press Release

NAHJ to Induct Geraldo Rivera, Ysabel Durón and Juan Gonzales into Hall of Fame

Media Contact: Iván Román, (202) 662-7178

Washington, D.C. – Three enduring pioneers for equality and truth in storytelling will be inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Hall of Fame during the NAHJ Annual Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico next month where hundreds will converge to create a critical mass of journalists skilled in multimedia.

Geraldo Rivera, host of Fox’s newsmagazine “Geraldo-at-Large”; KRON "Weekend Morning News" anchor Ysabel Durón; and founder and editor of El Tecolote newspaper and professor of journalism at City College of San Francisco Juan Gonzales will be inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame. This year’s Hall of Fame Gala starts at 7:30pm on Friday, June 26 at the Puerto Rico Convention Center during the 27th Annual NAHJ Convention and Media & Career Expo in San Juan set for June 24-27, 2009.

“Each of the three nominees has done valuable work advancing the interest of journalism and the interest of Latinos in journalism,” says Ricardo Pimentel, NAHJ President and editorial page editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I congratulate them all. Mostly, I thank them for paving the way for the Latino journalists who wisely held them up as role models and then began careers of their own.”

Geraldo Rivera was the first Latino correspondent at a national news network for ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Rivera launched the long-running talk show “Geraldo” and was a senior correspondent for “20/20.” Shortly after September 11, 2001, Rivera joined Fox News Network as a war correspondent and now hosts “Geraldo-at-Large.” Rivera has won more than 170 journalism awards and is a founding member and the largest benefactor of NAHJ.

Ysabel Durón is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and storyteller who broke ground as the first Latina anchor in Chicago mainstream news. Durón has anchored the "Weekend Morning News" for KRON in San Francisco for nearly two decades and has been a fierce advocate for providing resources for cancer education and treatment to underserved communities. After being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease in 1998, Durón produced an award-wining series chronicling her winning battle with the disease and founded Latinas Contra Cancer.

Juan Gonzales founded El Tecolote in 1970 - a bilingual, non-commercial newspaper in San Francisco’s Mission District that continues to advocate for justice and serves as a canvas for budding journalists. In addition to editing El Tecolote, Gonzales chairs the Department of Journalism at the City College of San Francisco, where he taught the first college-level course on Hispanic journalism titled La Raza Journalism. Gonzales also chairs the Voices for Justice project commemorating the bicentennial of Latino Newspapers in the U.S.

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.

With the induction of Rivera, Durón and Gonzales, there are now 25 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 covering the Anti-Vietnam War Moratorium rally when he was killed by a tear-gas projectile fired by a deputy sheriff into a bar 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 Juan González, New York Daily News Columnist; Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, Ph.D., professor at the University of Texas at Austin; and Francisco P. Ramírez, editor of El Clamor Público, Los Angeles’ first Spanish-language newspaper.

The NAHJ Hall of Fame Gala is being co-sponsored by Continental Airlines. For more information about the Gala and the Convention which will take place from June 24-27, 2009 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, please visit www.nahj.org.

Biographical information about the inductees:

Geraldo Rivera

Ysabel Durón

Juan Gonzales

Geraldo Rivera’s groundbreaking accomplishments in journalism span three decades, starting when he became the first Latino correspondent at a national news network for ABC’s “Good Morning America.” After eight years as senior correspondent for “20/20”, Rivera launched “Geraldo” in 1987. The talk show ran for 11 years and included a high-profile on-air fight that left Rivera with a broken nose. Rivera joined Fox News Network shortly after September 11, 2001 and now hosts “Geraldo-at-Large.” Rivera has won more than 170 journalism awards, including a George Foster Peabody Award and three national Emmys. Rivera earned his law degree from the Brooklyn Law School and is the author of six books, most recently His Panic, Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S. Rivera joined NAHJ as a founding member in 1984 and has been a generous financial supporter of programs that support journalists of color.

Ysabel Durón is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and storyteller who broke ground as the first Latina anchor in Chicago mainstream news. Durón has anchored the "Weekend Morning News" for KRON in San Francisco for nearly two decades, a post she still holds after being diagnosed with cancer and subsequently producing an award-wining series chronicling her winning battle with the disease. A longtime member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ “Silver Circle”, Durón won an RNTDA award for her series “The Child I Never Had” about a son she gave up for adoption.

Juan Gonzales is a visionary and longtime pioneer in Hispanic journalism. Gonzales founded El Tecolote in 1970 - a bilingual, non-commercial newspaper in San Francisco’s Mission District that continues to advocate for justice and serves as a canvas for budding journalists. In addition to editing El Tecolote, Gonzales chairs the Department of Journalism at the City College of San Francisco, where he taught the first college-level course on Hispanic journalism titled La Raza Journalism. Gonzales also chairs the Voices for Justice project commemorating the bicentennial of Latino Newspapers in the U.S.

Founded in 1984, NAHJ's mission is to increase the percentage of Latinos working in our nation's newsrooms and to improve news coverage of the Latino community. NAHJ is the nation's largest professional organization for Latino journalists with more than 2,300 members working in English and Spanish-language print, photo, broadcast and online media. NAHJ is a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization. For more information, visit www.nahj.org.