John Quiñones: 1952—: Broadcast journalist

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A familiar face to American television viewers, John Quiñones is one of the most prominent Hispanics in broadcast journalism. An ABC News network correspondent since 1982 and anchor of 20/20 Downtown since 1999, Quiñones' award-wining reporting has appeared on ABC's World News Tonight, and ABC's television news-magazines PrimeTime Live, Primetime Thursday, and 20/20. In addition to national and international events, Quiñones has reported extensively on Latin America and on the Hispanic-American community.

Came From the Barrio

John Manuel Quiñones was born on May 23, 1952, in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Bruno and Maria Quiñones. Although a fifth-generation San Antonian, Quiñones did not learn English until he started school at age six. His tough, Spanish-speaking neighborhood was rife with gangs and drugs. For many years his father worked as a janitor at the high school that he attended and school counselors tried to steer Quiñones and his fellow Hispanics toward lives of manual labor. However, in "My Own Experience: The Latino Experience Through My Eyes," Quiñones quoted his father as saying: "I asked you, do you think it's good for you to be working hard like I do. And you said, 'No, I'm going to school.'" It was during high school that Quiñones resolved to overcome Hispanic stereotyping and pursue a career in journalism. An Upward Bound program at St. Mary's University in San Antonio helped prepare him for college-level work.

While attending St. Mary's University in 1973, Quiñones began working as a reporter and announcer at KTSA-Radio. He continued on there after graduating in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in speech communications. Between 1975 and 1978 Quiñones was a reporter and news editor at KTRH-Radio in Houston, as well as a reporter and anchor at KPRC-TV. In 1979 he earned his master's degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Quiñones began his rise to prominence as a reporter at WBBM-TV, the CBS affiliate in Chicago. Beginning in 1979 he covered neighborhood and local news, as well as stories of national and international significance. His 1980 documentary series about the plight of undocumented immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico won two local Emmy awards. Other major Quiñones reports included the Cuban boat lift of 1980 and the Haitian boat people of 1982.

At a Glance . . .

Born John Manuel Quiñones on May 23, 1952, in San Antonio, TX; son of Maria and Bruno Quiñones. Education: St. Mary's University, BA, 1974; Columbia School of Journalism, MS, 1979.

Career: KTSA-Radio, San Antonio, reporter, announcer, 1973-75; KTRH-Radio, Houston, reporter, news editor, 1975-78; KPRC-TV, Houston, anchor-reporter, 1975-78; WBBM-TV, Chicago, reporter, 1979-82; ABC News, network correspondent, 1982–; Discovery News, reporter, 1997; 20/20 Downtown, host, 1999–.

Memberships: National Hispanic Journalists Association.

Awards: Two local Emmy Awards, Chicago; six national Emmy Awards; citation, first place international category, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, 1991; World Hunger Media Award; two Gabriel Awards; Overseas Press Club of America, Eric and Amy Burger Award for Best Reporting from Abroad; Ark Trust Wildlife Award; ALMA Award, National Council of La Raza , 2000.

Address: Office— ABC News, 147 Columbus Ave., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10023.

Moved to ABC

In 1982 Quiñones joined the ABC network news division as a general assignment correspondent for World News Tonight and other ABC News programs. His base in Miami, Florida, enabled him to cover Latin American stories that were unavailable to other journalists. Throughout the 1980s he produced analyses of the civil war in El Salvador and the economic crises and political scandals in Argentina. In 1986 Quiñones covered the space shuttle Challenger disaster from Cape Canaveral, Florida. During 1988 he filed more than 50 reports from Panama City, Panama, where the U.S. government was attempting to overthrow General Manuel Noriega. Quiñones was one of very few American journalists who was allowed to cover the U.S. invasion of Panama in December of 1989.

Other Quiñones news stories of the 1980s included the explosion aboard the USS Iowa, the execution of convicted serial killer Ted Bundy, and the Florida gun control debates for World News Tonight With Peter Jennings. He was a correspondent for the 1988 ABC special America's Kids: Why They Flunk. Quiñones won his first national Emmy Award in April of 1990 for his anchoring of the ABC News special documentary Burning Questions, The Poisoning of America, broadcast in September of 1988. He won another national Emmy Award in 1990 for his story on Venezuela's threatened Yanomamo Indians, "Window in the Past."

In 1990 Quiñones followed the "throwaway" street children of Bogotá, Colombia, into the sewers beneath that city. His report entitled "To Save the Children" garnered him a World Hunger Media Award, a Gabriel Award, and a citation from the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards in 1991. Later that season Quiñones followed up with a report on the violent treatment of thousands of homeless children by police in Guatemala.

Reported for PrimeTime Live

Quiñones became a correspondent for ABC's weekly news program, PrimeTime Live, in 1991. During his first season, his report on the exploitation of Haitian children laboring in the cane fields of the Dominican Republic, "Bitter Harvest," earned him the Overseas Press Club's Eric and Amy Burger Award for Best Reporting from Abroad. The program also won a 1992 Emmy and first place in the international category of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards in 1991.

For another Emmy award-winning documentary, Quiñones and his crew smuggled cameras into Tibet to report on the 40-year Chinese occupation. Quiñones also went undercover to investigate the meat-packing industry. The resulting exposé of the distribution of contaminated meat in the United States led to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Quiñones investigated the cause of an epidemic of brain defects among newborns in Brownsville, Texas; reported on the problems of homeless veterans; traveled to India to investigate the poverty-driven trade in human kidneys for organ transplants; and reported from a Florida research center on the interactions between dolphins and disabled children.

Over the following years, Quiñones conducted wide-ranging investigations and interviews from all corners of the world. He used hidden cameras to investigate the safety and quality of America's seafood and a Peruvian black market that supplied babies for adoption. Quiñones went diving off the coast of Bimini to profile a marine biologist dedicated to preserving sharks and reported on the ancient, endangered Penan Indians of Sarawak, Malaysia. Quiñones' investigation of U.S. military involvement in Filipino prostitution over a 40-year period revealed the plight of some 9,000 Amerasian children who had been abandoned by their American fathers.

Quiñones continued to report on Latin American issues. He interviewed "tunnel rats," gangs of young Mexicans who rove through tunnels, beating and robbing immigrants trying to enter the United States illegally. He investigated the murder of American Michael Devine by Guatemalan soldiers, and the connections between the Guatemalan military and drug traffickers. Quiñones reported on the Latin singer Selena and her murder by the president of her fan club. A broadcast in March of 1997, in which Quiñones profiled undocumented Mexican boys being preyed upon by men in San Diego's Balboa Park, outraged many Americans. Quiñones also investigated the mis-treatment of other ethnicities as well. Police profiling of blacks became a national issue after a 1996 Prime-Time Live report, in which Quiñones and his colleagues used hidden cameras to show blacks being routinely stopped for minor traffic violations and then searched without cause. A lawsuit brought by police against ABC, Quiñones, and others involved in the broadcast was dismissed in 2002.

Became News Show Host

In recent years correspondents for ABC and other network news teams have been assigned stories to be used on a variety of news programs. During the 1997-98 television season, Quiñones was a member of the ABC News team assembled to report on the Albanian refugee crisis in Kosovo, for a one-hour 20/20 special and other ABC News programs. The following season ABC ran four editions of 20/20 each week, emphasizing investigative journalism and medical and consumer news. Although his reporting on 20/20 was nominated for a 1999 ALMA award as Outstanding Correspondent in a Primetime News Magazine, Quiñones told USA Today: "There was a lot of sameness, whether it was Dateline or 20/20. We had fallen into that trap." So in October of 1999, ABC introduced 20/20 Downtown, hosted by Quiñones and featuring more emotionally-charged first-person "stories with attitude," as Quiñones called them.

In November of 2000 20/20 Downtown broadcast Quiñones' "Childhood of Shame," an exposé of violence and abuse in boarding schools run by the Hare Krishna religious group in the United States and India during the 1970s and 1980s. In his 20/20 Downtown program "DanceSafe or Sorry?," Quiñones reported on the widespread use of the drug ecstasy, particularly among teenagers, and on DanceSafe, an organization that tested drugs at raves or underground dance parties and then returned the drugs to the patron. In 2001 Quiñones anchored a 20/20 Downtown program, "Law and Disorder: U.S. Disagrees with Holland's Solution to Illegal Drugs." The season premiere of 20/20 Downtown in January of 2002 featured Quiñones' investigation, "Vanished: The Mystery of the Missing Girls," about the disappearances of young girls from suburban San Francisco East Bay neighborhoods over a period of 30 years.

Quiñones was also a correspondent for ABC News's 24-hour, live, global millennium broadcast. It won the George Foster Peabody Award for 1999 and an Emmy in 2000 in the Special Classification for Outstanding News and Documentary Program Achievement. In January of 2001, Primetime Thursday aired Quiñones' undercover investigation that exposed insurance fraud by rings of doctors, chiropractors, lawyers, and medical centers, causing insurance rates to soar. For the opening Quiñones returned home, to the San Antonio Police Department, where women in the main lobby sorted through the day's accident reports and faxed them to telephone solicitors who contacted victims.

Reported and Anchored Latino Specials

Recognizing the growing influence of Hispanic culture on American life, Quiñones was named reporter and anchor for a 1999 ABC News special called The Latin Beat. Having been based in Miami for 15 years, Quiñones was uniquely qualified to present a program that focused on positive aspects of America's Hispanic communities. The program looked at the growing political and economic influence of Hispanics and examined how they are changing America. For example, it showed viewers that although Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnicity in the United States, they are underrepresented in broadcast media. During 1997 Quiñones was one of only five Latino correspondents on the evening television news. It also featured Latin stars who are gaining popularity across the United States and examined the roots of the Latino "cross-over" movement—the music Quiñones had grown up with—including salsa, meringue, and "Tejano," meaning Texan. Quiñones wrote on the ABC website, "The Latin Beat has been the most fun I've had professionally in a long time." The program earned critical acclaim and won Quiñones a 2000 ALMA Award from the National Council of La Raza in the category of Outstanding Correspondent, Anchor and/or Host of a National News Program or Special.

In 1999 Quiñones narrated The Border for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), a two-hour program about the culture and issues facing the border regions of Mexico and the United States. He also contributed to the three-part ABC-Time report, "The New Frontier," which looked at the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement on U.S.-Mexican relations. Quiñones reported from the village of Tulcingo in southern Mexico, from which so many men had emigrated to the United States that only old people and children remained. However the town's standard of living had improved greatly due to millions of dollars sent home from America. In 1999, as a member of the ABC News Crime and Justice team, Quiñones and fellow correspondent Cynthia McFadden reported on "Street Life: Inside America's Gangs." Quiñones provided an inside look at the Latin Kings and their leader King Tone, who was attempting to redirect the gang away from violence.

On January 21, 2000, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings focused on Latinos in America. It was the first evening news broadcast devoted to the Latino community. The program also was available live nationwide on the secondary audio program system. In his report, "My Latino Experience," Quiñones used the story of his own family to examine issues of Latino pride and assimilation. He emphasized the pride Latinos feel in the culture, language, and customs of their countries of origin, and the profound effects of the Latino community on American culture. Quiñones returned to his old high school in San Antonio to observe the changes since the 1960s. He found a Latino generation that was much better adapted to America than his own generation had been. Likewise the rest of America had become more accustomed to Latinos. One student told him: "It makes me proud to see my culture overcome all the oppression that we were put through back in the early sixties and seventies." Others told him that they were of two cultures, "Mexican-American" or "Latina/Mexican-American. It's both, equal." Another said: "All we want is success, to be successful in life and still be true to our culture."

In all, Quiñones has won six national Emmy awards for his work on ABC News programs and specials. His report on the Congo's virgin rainforest won both an Emmy and the Ark Trust Wildlife Award. His report Diamonds and Blood was a finalist for the 2000 network/syndicated television award of the Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., a grassroots, nonprofit organization that seeks to improve the quality of investigative journalism. For this report on the rebel-controlled Central-African diamond trade, Quiñones was a member of the first American newsmagazine crew to enter Sierra Leone since civil war erupted there. In 2002 Quiñones was nominated for an ALMA award in the category of Outstanding Correspondent or Anchor of a National News Program. Quiñones was scheduled to co-host the 2002 Hispanic Media 100 Awards ceremony. However true to his principles, he withdrew after learning that the ceremony would honor an anti-gay activist.

Selected works

Broadcasts

America's Kids: Why They Flunk, ABC, 1988.

Burning Questions, The Poisoning of America, ABC, 1988.

The World is Watching, ABC, 1988.

Only the News That Fits, ABC, 1989.

"Bitter Harvest," PrimeTime Live, ABC, 1991.

The Border, PBS, 1999.

The Latin Beat, ABC, 1999.

"Childhood of Shame," 20/20 Downtown, ABC, 2000.

(With David Fitzpatrick, Thomas E. Goldstone, David Ward, and Jane Hartney) Diamonds and Blood, ABC, 2000.

"My Latino Experience," World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, ABC, 2000.

"Vanished: The Mystery of the Missing Girls," 20/20 Downtown, ABC, 2002.

On-line

"The Latin Beat," ABCNEWS.com, http://abcnews. go.com/onair/dailynews/sp990907_latinbeat.html (March 30, 2003).

"My Own Experience: The Latino Experience Through My Eyes," ABCNEWS.com, http://abcnews.go.com/onair/WorldNewsTonight/wnt_00012111_Quiñones_features.html (April 20, 2003).

Sources

Books

Machamer, Gene, Hispanic American Profiles, Ballantine Books, 1996, p. 78.

Periodicals

USA Today, October 4, 1999, p. D3.

On-line

"John Quiñones: ABCNEWS Correspondent, Downtown Anchor," ABCNEWS.com, http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/2020/Quiñones_john_bio2020downtown.html (April 23, 2003).

"My Own Experience: The Latino Experience Through My Eyes," ABCNEWS.com, http://abcnews.go.com/onair/WorldNewsTonight/wnt_00012111_Quiñones_features.html (April 20, 2003).

—Margaret Alic