Juan Manuel "John" Quiñones (born May 23, 1952) is an American

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...

correspondent who hosted '' What Would You Do?''.

Early life and education

Quiñones was born in

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_ ...

, on May 23, 1952. He is a fifth-generation San Antonian and a fifth-generation

Mexican-American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

. Quiñones grew up in a Spanish-speaking household where he did not learn to speak English until he started school at age six. When he was 13 years old, his father was laid off from his job as a janitor at which the family joined a caravan of migrant farmworkers who traveled to

Traverse City, Michigan Traverse City ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Grand Traverse County, although a small portion extends into Leelanau County. It is the largest city in the 21-county Northern Michigan region. The population wa ...

, to harvest cherries. Later that summer, the Quiñones family followed the migrant route to pick tomatoes outside

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Ohio, Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnat ...

. While attending

Brackenridge High School G.W. Brackenridge High School is a public high school located in central San Antonio, Texas, United States, and classified as a 5A school by the University Interscholastic League (UIL). This school is one of 12 high school schools in the San A ...

in San Antonio, Quiñones was selected to take part in the federal anti-poverty program,

Upward Bound Upward Bound is a federally funded educational program within the United States. The program is one of a cluster of programs now referred to as TRiO, all of which owe their existence to the federal Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (the War on ...

, which prepared inner-city high school students for college. As an undergraduate, Quiñones was also a member of the Sigma Beta-Zeta of

Lambda Chi Alpha Lambda Chi Alpha (), commonly known as Lambda Chi, is a college fraternity in North America which was founded at Boston University in 1909. It is one of the largest social fraternities in North America, with more than 300,000 lifetime members a ...

fraternity. After graduating from St. Mary's with a Bachelor of Arts degree in

speech communication Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are th ...

, Quiñones earned a Master of Arts degree from the

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism ...

Career

Quiñones worked as a radio news editor at

KTRH KTRH () is a commercial radio station licensed to Houston, Texas and owned by iHeartMedia that airs a talk radio format. Programming is also heard on co-owned KODA's HD 2 channel at , and the station uses the iHeartRadio platform to stream its ...

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

from 1975 to 1978 and also worked as an anchor and reporter for

KPRC-TV KPRC-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Graham Media Group. Its studios are located on Southwest Freeway (I-69/US 59) in the Southwest Management District (formerly Greater ...

. He later reported for

WBBM-TV WBBM-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. In 1982, Quiñones started as a general assignment correspondent with

based in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

. He was a co-anchor of the ABC News program, ''Primetime,'' and hosted '' What Would You Do?''. He also reports for all

programs such as ''

20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...

'', ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. ...

'', ''

ABC World News Tonight ''ABC World News Tonight'' (titled ''ABC World News Tonight with David Muir'' for its weeknight broadcasts since September 2014) is the flagship daily evening television news program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting ...

,'' and ''

Nightline ''Nightline'' (or ''ABC News Nightline'') is ABC News' late-night television news program broadcast on ABC in the United States with a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. Created by Roone Arledge, the prog ...

''. According to communications attorney Mark Lloyd, "Quiñones told the

League of United Latin American Citizens The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the largest and oldest Hispanic and Latin-American civil rights organization in the United States. It was established on February 17, 1929, in Corpus Christi, Texas, largely by Hispanics ...

(LULAC) audience that he got his start because a San Antonio community organization threatened that if the stations didn't hire more Latinos, the group would go to the FCC (

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

) and challenge their licenses."

Awards

George Foster Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

, 1999, ABC News, New York, New York, "ABC 2000" (also known as ABC 2000 Today.) *

ALMA Award The American Latino Media Arts Award or ALMA Award, formerly known as Latin Oscars Award, is an award highlighting the best American Latino contributions to music, television, and film. The awards promote fair and accurate portrayals of Latino ...

from the

National Council of La Raza UnidosUS, formerly National Council of La Raza (NCLR) (La Raza), is the United States's largest Latino nonprofit advocacy organization. It advocates in favor of progressive public policy changes including immigration reform, a path to citizen ...

. * CINE award for his report on suicide bombers in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. *

Gabriel Award The Gabriel Awards are a Catholic honor awarded each year for excellence in broadcasting. They were started by the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals in 1965, and are currently administered by the Catholic Media Association Th ...

. * 7-time

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

winner. * World Hunger Media Award and a Citation from the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. *

Pigasus Award The Pigasus Award is the name of an annual tongue-in-cheek award that was presented by noted skeptic James Randi. The award seeks to expose parapsychological, paranormal or psychic frauds that Randi had noted over the previous year. Randi ...

, 2005, ABC's Primetime Live, for its credulous "

John of God John of God ( pt, João de Deus; es, Juan de Dios; lat, Joannes Dei; March 8, 1495 – March 8, 1550) was a Portuguese soldier turned health-care worker in Spain, whose followers later formed the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, a ...

" special, about Brazilian "psychic surgeon" João Teixeira *National Hispanic Media Coalition's Lifetime Achievement Award, 2016.

Books

* *

References

External links

John QuiñonesArticle "ABC's Primetime Star"
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Quinones, John 1952 births Living people American television reporters and correspondents ABC News personalities American television personalities of Mexican descent Emmy Award winners Television anchors from Chicago Brackenridge High School alumni Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni Journalists from San Antonio Journalists from Texas People from San Antonio St. Mary's University, Texas alumni 20th-century American journalists American male journalists 21st-century American journalists What Would You Do? (2008 TV program)