Programs/Content

CPB backs new episodes of Hinojosa’s America By The Numbers

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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting awarded an $850,000 grant for eight new half-hour episodes of America By The Numbers, a series featuring journalist Maria Hinojosa that had a pilot run as a PBS election special. Programs in the series, which will air on PBS and the World Channel, will cover topics such as health disparities revealed by infant mortality rates, military service by residents of non-voting territories of the Pacific Islands and the effects of the domestic oil boom on Native American lands. “Consistent with the mission of public broadcasting – to give voice to the extraordinary diversity of this country – I am excited that PBS and the World Channel will premiere America by the Numbers,” said Maria Hinojosa, series host and project leader, in a statement. “This eight-part series is the first national TV program dedicated to documenting massive and historic demographic change in the US using hard data and powerful storytelling.”

America By The Numbers is a collaboration between Hinojosa’s Futuro Media Group and Boston’s WGBH. CPB backed the production through its Diversity and Innovation Fund, according to its June 5 grant announcement.

People

Hinojosa wins John Chancellor Award for a lifetime of broadcasting achievement

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Maria Hinojosa, reporter and anchor for PBS, NPR and CNN, was selected by a panel of eight judges who cited “the courage and independence she has shown over the course of her career reporting on those whose stories might not otherwise make it into the mainstream media.”

The anchor/executive producer of NPR’s long-running Latino USA and anchor of Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One from WGBH/La Plaza was hailed for more than 25 years of reporting on the marginalized and powerless in the U.S. and overseas. In 2010 Hinojosa launched the nonprofit Futuro Media Group, which produces multiplatform, community-based journalism. And in 2011, she became the first Latina to anchor a PBS Frontline report, “Lost in Detention,” which probed the issues of deportation and immigrant detention and abuse. “From chronicling the Latino experience in America to investigating abuse in immigrant detention facilities and profiling child brides in India, Hinojosa has shown resilience and integrity by consistently covering critical issues that impact our society,” said Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism and chair of the selection committee. Hinojosa will receive $25,000 for the award, which honors longtime NBC News anchor John Chancellor.

People

Hinojosa & Collins: high hopes for partnership in the cloud

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The host of Latino USA for all of its 17 years, Maria Hinojosa, is now its proprietor, too, along with producer Sean Collins, her partner in a new media company in the digital cloud. Futuro Media Group, announced this month, starts off highly virtual and will get moreso. Hinojosa records her reports in a soundproofed closet in Harlem. Collins, her e.p. for five years and a former producer of All Things Considered, works in his hometown of St. Louis.