Maria Hinojosa, founder and president of Futuro Media Group, has won the 2024 W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award.
Hinojosa won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022 for Futuro’s podcast “Suave,” a Peabody in 2015 for “Latino USA,” for which she serves as anchor and executive producer, the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award and countless others. She also hosts the podcast “In The Thick,” a multi-year Webby winner.
Hinojosa accepted the award at the National Press Foundation’s annual awards dinner on Feb. 20 at the Ritz-Carlton Washington, D.C.
“When Maria Hinojosa began her career in broadcast journalism almost 40 years ago, a fast-growing segment of the American population—Hispanics, soon to become the nation’s largest minority — were almost invisible in national news coverage and in mainstream newsrooms,” said Knight Kiplinger, on behalf of the award judges. “Hinojosa was instrumental in changing that, with her pioneering work in broadcast reporting, commentary, media entrepreneurship, print memoirs and college teaching. At NPR, CNN, PBS, CBS Sunday Morning and MSNBC, Maria became an energetic, creative and wise illuminator of the daily experiences, challenges and aspirations of Latino Americans and many other groups of Americans. All of this makes Maria Hinojosa an eminently worthy honoree for her lifetime contributions to American journalism.”
“Latino USA” is the longest-running Latino news public radio program and Hinojosa was the first Latina to anchor a PBS Frontline report in 2011.
The Kiplinger Award was created in 1983 to honor persons who have, through their vision and leadership, strengthened American journalism and furthered the efforts to establish the highest quality in American journalism. Previous Kiplinger honorees include Dorothy Butler Gilliam, Dick Tofel, Bob Woodward, Diane Rehm, Linda Johnson Rice, Bill Kovach, Seymour Hersh, Helen Thomas and Katharine Graham.
The award is named after Washington journalist and publisher W. M. Kiplinger (1891-1967), founder of The Kiplinger Letter and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.
