By Gabriela Velázquez
Photo for Latino Leaders by Alejandro Gamboa

Every day when millions get home after work, they turn on the TV and watch the familiar faces we have come to trust to inform us about what is happening in the world. Jorge Ramos has been one of those faces on the screens of Latino viewers for more than 14 years as anchorman for Noticiero Univision.

Born on March 16, 1958, in Mexico City, he was already a hard working journalist in his twenties when he decided to come to the United States. Like most immigrants he was hoping for a better life, but his other motivation was to exercise a free journalism without the censorship he had faced in his country. He worked as a waiter and cashier while taking a TV journalism course at UCLA and finally got his first chance as a reporter at a Univision affiliate station, KMEX, in Los Angeles.

At age 28 he had become one of the youngest national anchormen in America for the Miami-based Univision network and has been on the air ever since. With Univision controlling between 70 and 80 percent of the Hispanic audience in the United States, and his newscast being seen in 13 Latin American countries, his influence cannot be understated. A great part of his success is due to the fact that he understands his audience.

He is well aware that American Latinos not only want to know about the outstanding affairs of the US but also want to hear about what is going on in the places they came from.
Through the years, Ramos has built up a reputation for reliability through solid work and his hallmark ruthless interviews. He has covered three wars (El Salvador, the Persian Gulf, and Kosovo), and over the last ten years he has interviewed almost every Latin American president.

Ramos’s coverage includes the printed media and radio as well. He writes a weekly column on US and Latin American politics that is published in some 30 national newspapers, including opinion-makers such as The Miami Herald and The Chicago Tribune, and overseas newspapers, such as Mexico’s Reforma and Nicaragua’s La Prensa. His daily radio commentaries are broadcast by dozens of radio stations around the country and in Mexico. He has written several books, including La otra cara de América and No Borders.

Ramos has been honored with the Columbia University Maria Moors Cabot Journalism Award (2001) and the David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Communication (2003).

In cities like Houston and Los Angeles, his newscast beats the ratings of major American networks. Knowing how important the Latino vote is, President George W. Bush chose Ramos for his first television interview, which clearly proves the popularity this anchorman has among Latinos. Jorge Ramos was recently named the third most influential Latino (after Edward James Olmos and Henry Cisneros) in a poll by Hispanic Trend.