Maria Hinojosa was honored with the Si Se Puede award by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at the organization’s Hall of Fame Convention in Las Vegas this past weekend. CBS Weekend News Anchor Adriana Diaz was the host of the convention held at Caesars Palace. 

Along with Hinojosa, the national association honored ABC Correspondent John Quiñones and Los Angeles Times Opinion Columnist and Author Jean Guerrero with the President’s Award and the ¡Dale! Award, respectively.

The Hall of Fame ceremony highlights and honors the pioneering journalists and their work that inspired many Latinx to enter the journalism field, and or have helped improve the news coverage of the Latinx community overall. In a field dominated by non-Latinx, the field needs more of them and the efforts of the journalists honored at these ceremonies paved the way for many to follow in their footsteps in hopes of expanding the newsroom for more Latinx members. 

Born in Mexico City, Hinojosa moved to Hyde Park in Chicago when she was just one years old when her father, a doctor, was appointed to the surgical staff at the University of Chicago. Later on, she made her way to New York, where she attended Barnard College in Manhattan.

Hinojosa started as a reporter, and opened doors for many Latina reporters after her by being one of the first in a national  newsroom. Her over 30-year career spans many newsrooms, publications, and features many important stories on urban communities that were not given that kind of attention prior, or at least the right kind as her, along with many accolades. Throughout her career, she has received four Emmys, a Peabody Award, and the most prestigious Pulitzer Prize. 

From CNN, PBS, NPR, CBS, and WNBC, Hinojosa has reported for the best of the best in TV and radio. However, she always dreamt of creating an independent multimedia platform that would investigate and give voice to the much diversified country, including the ever-growing Latinx community.

Her answer to that dream was Futuro Media, an independent, nonprofit news organization based in Harlem, New York where a lot of her stories were focused. The media group she founded made her dream come true of having a media group that empowered the underserved communities and how to navigate through the complex and diverse world. 

She is the anchor and executive president of Latino USA, a weekly public radio show that is produced by Futuro Media that has been on the air for more than 25 years, and the host of the In the Thick Show, the award-winning podcast that focuses on communities of color, their issues, and what can be done to give power and voice to them. 

In addition to more than three decades worth of covering stories about the underserved, she was the first Latinx person to ever anchor a PBS: Frontline report entitled “Lost In Detention,” back in October 2011. The report focused on the injustices and abuses at immigrant detention facilities, which got attention from mainstream and Spanish language media, even Capitol Hill. She has also authored two books in addition to anchoring an Emmy-winning talk show from WGBH, Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One. 

When at CNN for eight years, she was its urban affairs correspondent. In that role, Hinojosa was able to take the viewers at home into the urban communities that were rarely if ever shown on television and continued that kind of work through the rest of her career. As reporter for NPR, she was one of the first, if not the first, to cover the youth violence in the urban communities at a bigger scale than ever previously done. 

With dozens of awards under her belt, books, podcasts, radio shows, and a journalism career for the ages, Hinojosa is the trailblazer that not just Latinas needed, but the overall Latinx community. With newsrooms across the country lacking Latinx representation, it is people like her and many others who have paved the way for many to follow.