Anthony Victoria:
For KVCR News, I'm Anthony Victoria. This is IE Latino Voices, where we highlight the people, organizations, and stories shaping Latino communities across the Inland Empire. Today, I'm joined by Leticia Juarez, a longtime broadcast journalist who recently joined KVCR as our new television news reporter. We'll talk about her career, what brought her to our station, and the importance of local journalism. Leticia, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it.
Leticia Juarez:
Well, thank you for having me.
Anthony Victoria:
I just wanted to start off by asking you how you entered this amazing field that we're in, journalism. What interested you, and yeah, what excites you most about this career?
Leticia Juarez:
Well, I've always loved the whole idea of storytelling. I like the process of developing stories, and when I was in the seventh grade, I remember writing a very long, long story, and our peers had to grade it. And the peer that I gave my paper to was like, "I don't want to read this. It's more than we were given assigned, so my teacher read it, and from there, I think my teacher was very encouraging and continued to inspire me to write. And then I went off to college, graduated from UCLA, and was not in journalism at all. It wasn't even offered at the time when I graduated, but a conversation with a friend who was attending USC of all places, she was at the Annenberg School of Journalism, and she was mentioning how there was really an absence of Latino voices in news. And she said, "Letty, with your background, you know, you should really think about it." And she did, she got me thinking about it. And funny enough, UCLA had an extension program for journalism, so I took some classes, and I really fell in love with it because it was not just storytelling; it was like historic for me. And I love history as well. And I always felt like being a journalist is also being a historian. You're there for the events that matter in people's lives, and they become part of history.
Anthony Victoria:
Absolutely. And I just want to build off of what you mentioned about sort of the absence of Latino journalists. Do you feel like there's been inroads made, and if so, like why do you think that is?
Leticia Juarez:
There definitely have been inroads made. If you look at TV today, there's a lot more Latinos, Latinas on TV. Our voices are very much part of the conversation. Do we still have more work to do? Absolutely, but it's definitely been a change from when I began this journalism career 25 years ago to today. When I first started in Adelphia in Palmdale, Lancaster, when they had a TV cable station, I believe I was the only Latina they had, and it's come in handy for having me in the newsroom for different things. I was able to reach out to voices in the community, and if they needed it translated, I could translate that for them.
Anthony Victoria:
If you can share a little bit of what your plans are for coverage, I know health is one of the key things that you like to cover. Any other topics that you feel are of importance, or that you'd like to bring to TV?
Leticia Juarez:
One of the things I really am excited to do is to be focused on the Inland Empire and the news that matters here in this community, I'm a longtime listener of - of you all here. I would turn to you for the most local coverage, the local initiatives, the coverage of local political races, because you don't get that in LA. I love that here at KVCR, you can really drill down on the local part of what is happening in the community, and that's what I want to do with the newscast as well-is really drill down on the issues that affect you know all of us here, living, working, spending our lives here. I've grew up in this community. I was born in this community, born at Loma Linda actually, and I still just want the best for this community. I want to tell the stories of this community and just continue that legacy of what this station has been able to do.
Anthony Victoria:
Well, Letty, we're so lucky to have you, and I just want to thank you so much for coming on our program. Really appreciate you.
Leticia Juarez:
Well, thank you. It's a joy to be here, and I cannot wait to start telling those stories.
Anthony Victoria:
That was Leticia Juarez, who is our new television news reporter here at KVCR.
IE Latino Voices is produced by KVCR Public Media and is funded by generous support from the CIELO Fund at IECF, uplifting and investing in the IE's Latino community.
