(light music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Thanks for joining us on this special edition of "In Focus", I'm Fred Martino.
For the next half hour, we'll be talking with one of the longest serving journalists in network television.
I am pleased and honored to welcome John Quiñones of ABC news.
John, thank you so much for being here today.
- It's a pleasure, Fred.
Thank you for having me.
- Great to have you here.
As I said, you're one of the longest serving journalists in network television, you've worked for decades.
- [John] I started when I was 10 years old.
(both laughing) - As a reporter and anchor at ABC.
I know this is a tough question, 'cause I'm sure like most people in this field, there are many things you enjoy.
What do you enjoy most about this work?
- The people I get to meet.
You know?
People from all walks of life, you yourself included.
But when we go to far away places, I see journalism as a light.
We're blessed with carrying a candle, us journalists, or a flashlight, and we can shine it on the darkest corners of the room, or of the world, literally to illuminate injustice, to illuminate corruption, and discrimination, and civil rights violations, and human rights violations.
I think when journalism is done right, that's what we should be doing, taking that light and shining it.
And that's what I love about the opportunity that I've been blessed with having as a journalist all these years, is the opportunity to bring things out into the light.
- Yeah, it is a blessing.
It is something that we enjoy and the opportunity, as well, to see the best parts of society.
- [John] And the bad, yeah.
- The big picture and the bad as well.
- [John] Yeah, yeah.
- What would you say?
And again, this is another tough question, because you've done this for decades.
What would you say is your biggest accomplishment in your career?
- I think it it's because of where I'm from, because I happen to be a Latino who was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas.
And by the way, my family's been here generations, the Quiñones's in Texas.
We were there since Texas was part of Mexico, and part of Spain.
A lot of people forget that.
They think we're all immigrants and, well, a lot of us have been here a long time.
But as a Latino reporter, I've been able to go to places like Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and Cuba, and Panama, and Argentina, and Chile, and all of Latin America.
And I've been able to sort go in where I'm not so easily identifiable as foreign as an American correspondent because I look the way I do.
And because of that, I'm able to get people to open up to me and tell me things that maybe they wouldn't tell someone else.
I think that's been part of my strength.
I was just in Uvalde last week, and I've been there for weeks now, the last couple of months.
ABC has made a strong commitment to stay there, and open up an office there.
So we don't forget what happened in Uvalde, that awful school shooting on May 24th of this year.
And in that community, because I'm from San Antonio, I've been able to get folks who recognize me, and who feel comfortable talking to me, to open up to me.
So I think that, if there's any strength that I bring, it's been that, being able to get people's stories out.
- And I imagine as well in terms of being bilingual, being able to speak to people who may not have English as a first language, or may not speak English at.
- Absolutely, yeah.
- Very important.
- Not only that, it's just understanding the mannerisms, the culture, knowing when you've pushed too far on a question, and when you haven't pushed far enough.
That's a real advantage that I've been able to have over some of my colleagues, especially in Latin America.
But also just generally, it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I'm Hispanic.
But having a sensitivity, having a sense of compassion, having worked hard in the migrant fields as a migrant farm worker, we picked, when I was a child, I picked tomatoes in Ohio, and cherries in Michigan.
My father was a janitor.
Having that perspective, I think is a strength also, because then you understand where many folks, who may not be so privileged in this country, are coming from.
And when they know that, they also feel more comfortable with me, I think.
- And we're gonna talk more about that aspect of your personal history coming up a little later in our conversation.
I do think that that's an important thing to talk about in the overall sense of journalism, and journalists.
I wanna ask you about something, I'm sure a lot of people who are watching this show want me to ask you about.
- [John] Okay.
- They recognize you.
And you're very well known for a fascinating program called "What Would You Do?"
Tell me how that show came about, and why you think it's so popular.
- I think it's popular first of all, because it reminds us, first of all, it reminds us of how good people can be.
Right?
It restores your faith in humanity.
When you see an injustice, and our hidden cameras capture people jumping in to help a stranger, it really does make you feel good.
It restores your faith in humanity, but also, when people don't step in and do the right thing, or don't lend a helping hand, or raise their voice.
It reminds us that we have work to do in this country when it comes to racism, and bullying, and discrimination, and antisemitism, and gay bashing.
It reminds us that we still have some work to do in this country.
I think that's why it's so popular because you become a fly in the wall.
People deny that these things happen, well, we're gonna put a hidden camera on it and show you that indeed it does happen.
I think that's why it's so popular.
I love the fact that young people, high school students, even elementary school students, certainly college students love the show.
I'm a meme now on TikTok, and on social media.
Kids doing their own "What Would You Do?"
scenarios.
It's a very, very popular show with them.
In fact, we're not on the air right now because of COVID, but we're hoping to bring it back to a streaming service like Hulu, or Disney Plus, so that we can continue now, restart doing the show, because America needs it right now, I think more than ever.
And the way it came up, well, 15 years ago, I was reading an article in the New York Times where a columnist, a column called "The Ethicist" was writing, the columnist was writing about what do you do?
He was a new father.
And he said, I'm at the park many times.
And so often babysitters or nannies are ignoring the child that they're supposed to be taken care of.
And the parents don't know, because they're at work.
How do you tell a child's parent that the babysitter, or nanny, is doing a lousy job?
They're at the park and the nanny, the babysitter is on her headphones, listening to music, or face timing or on, browsing the web, or just ignoring the child.
How do you tell the kid's parents?
So when I read that article, I said, "Wow, I think we can do that better.
We can put a hidden camera on it.
We'll get an actor to play the part of the nanny, disregarding the child and the child, ignoring the child, and the child, we'll have an actor play that role."
So we did it at a New Jersey park.
That was the very first one we did.
And it was well received.
First of all, parents did step in, and they would ask the kid, "Tell me your phone number, we wanna call your parents."
And then I would tell the child in his ear, "Tell him you don't talk to strangers."
So the little boy would go, "I don't talk to strangers."
And parents were beside themselves, and trying to figure out how do I help this kid?
And tell the parents?
And other mothers, and other fathers, came up with an ingenious way.
They wrote a note on a piece of paper, and they stuffed it in his backpack.
And they said, "Please call me.
I want to talk to you about the lousy job your babysitter's doing."
That was the very first "What Would You Do?"
And it was part of 2020.
It was sort of the end story, the kicker story, the fun story at the end of 2020.
And my bosses at ABC said, "Wow, that was great.
It was a good response.
Can you do another one?"
I said, "Yeah, I think we can."
And then they said, "Can you do a whole hour of it?"
I said, "We can put together five segments in an hour, yeah."
And then they said, "Can you do three hours?"
And then six hours.
And now we're doing nine hours at the end.
So that's how it came about.
We just came up with all these ideas and we thought, Fred, we'd run out of ideas.
I mean, how many can you do, right?
- [Fred] Yeah.
- Well, here we are, you know, 15 years later, we've done a thousand scenarios, and I think there's material to do more.
- Yep, absolutely.
You could never run out of ideas, and it's interesting, you point out that some folks are doing this on their own, which makes sense.
I mean, this is important.
A lot of times, if you're not there in the moment, you can't capture things and we've learned in so many different ways, the importance of people, if they're there and can capture something, the importance of doing that.
- [John] Yeah.
- Speaking of that, before you worked at ABC, when you started at ABC many years ago, you also worked in local radio and television.
Tell me about getting into journalism.
- I always wanted to be a journalist.
I used to listen to my little transistor radio when I was a kid in the Barrio in San Antonio.
And I would dream of someday covering these stories and going to these far off lands, 'cause we'd never been outta San Antonio, except to pick tomatoes in Ohio and cherries in Michigan.
So that was my dream.
And I used to watch Geraldo Rivera on 2020.
And he was this cool Latino guy with long hair, and blue jeans, and a mustache.
And he went to Turkey, and he went to Columbia, and South America.
And I dreamed of someday being like, he was the only Hispanic on television back then, that I knew of.
So I always wanted to do this.
And I was also very painfully shy, and I had a heavy accent.
'Cause I learned English as a second language.
So I would say, this is my chirt, these are my chews.
And people would make fun of me.
So I worked hard on overcoming that.
'Cause I knew that if ever was gonna be on network television, I would have to not speak with a heavy accent.
I wouldn't get hired.
So I joined a drama class in high school.
I tried out for the role of Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet".
And maybe it's because no one else tried out, but I wound up getting it.
(both chuckling) I was Romeo.
And it forced me to get on stage, and enunciate, and slow down my rapid fire speech.
'Cause I used to talk real fast.
And my drama teacher helped me a lot.
And then, when I went to college as a freshman, I got an internship at a radio station.
And that's what I suggest to all students.
Whatever it is you're gonna go into, whatever field, get an internship, get your foot in the door.
I don't care if you're getting coffee for the bosses, but you'll get a sense of what that place is like, right?
To work at a TV studio, or work at a radio station.
This was a country music station in San Antonio, called KKYX.
And they hired me for $2 an hour as an intern, I was 18.
My first job in broadcasting.
And you know what I got to do for my job?
What my responsibilities were?
The disc jockeys at this country music station had horses in the back of the studios that they would use in parades and rodeos.
My job as an intern was to feed the horses in the back of the studio, and clean up the horse poop.
- Oh my goodness.
- In the back.
- But at night I would get into the back studio, and I would read these beautiful reel to reel tape recorders back then.
Now it's all digital, of course.
But there were these tape recorders with a gorgeous microphone, and I got to practice.
And I would read everything I would get my hands on, right?
- [Fred] Sure.
- And the problem was, that was at midnight, and all the professionals who could criticize my work were gone.
The only one there had left to criticize my work was the janitor, and his name was Pablo Gonzales, and Pablo's English was worse than my fathers.
But I would drag him in there and I'd say, "Pablo, listen to my recording.
What do you think?"
And he would go (indistinct) more or less.
(Fred laughing) So that's how I started.
And then another radio station, then I couldn't get hired in television, 'cause no one would hire me in Texas.
Everyone had their one Hispanic reporter, and that they said, "That's all we need.
We don't need another one."
Which is horrible, right?
But I couldn't get a job in Texas.
So I decided to go back to grad school.
And I applied to Columbia University, this graduate school in New York, not only, and I got accepted.
And from there I got my first job in television in Chicago.
But I just kept having to plug and plug away.
- Perseverance.
- [John] Yeah.
- Perseverance is a great advice, and those internships.
Getting that experience.
- [John] Absolutely.
- Following up on this point that you just made, I want to get your thoughts on the importance of diversity in our journalism workforce, and also in our coverage, how we cover the world.
- You have to have people of color, and people from all walks of life working for the news division.
When I started, there weren't that many Latinos on television.
And if you don't have that, how in the world can you pretend, if you're a network, to cover all reaches of this country, and beyond all areas of the world?
How can you cover Latin America?
I was hired, when I was hired, my predecessor, one of my predecessors, was Bill Stewart.
And he was an ABC correspondent who was sent to cover the war in Nicaragua.
Bill was from New York, great journalist, great reporter, but he was white, and he didn't speak Spanish.
And he was shot and killed on camera in Nicaragua.
The cameraman was rolling when they shot and killed him, the soldiers, because he couldn't communicate with them.
That's just one of the real dangers of not having a diverse, you know, staff.
And the networks then said, "We should hire somebody who speaks Spanish to go to Latin America."
And there I was in Chicago, I just won a little Emmy award, and they hired me.
Peter Jennings and ABC News to cover that part.
But that tells you how important it is to have a diver- You need to have women, and African Americans, and by the way, also members of the LGBTQ community, who can cover issues that maybe we're not so much aware of, as a Latino man from Texas.
We need that.
And not only do we need folks on camera who represent diverse population of this country, but also, the people making the calls, the management folks, the senior producers, and the executive producers.
At ABC now, we now have an African American woman by the name of Kim Godwin, who is the first person of color to lead a news division in this country.
She's been tremendous.
The changes at ABC have been remarkable.
We're now so well represented at all levels.
And she's putting people also in positions of power.
It's really important.
If we pretend to cover the war, we have to, I mean the country, we have to people who represent the country.
- Absolutely.
So, I also want to hear your thoughts on efforts by universities to be more inclusive, including the Southern Illinois University Carbondale diversity week, in which you're an honored guest.
The reason I get to speak with you.
- Yes, that's why I'm here today.
- [Fred] Yeah.
- Tonight I'll be talking to all of them.
So to, not only the faculty and the students, but also the community.
And it's a real honor to be kicking off diversity week here.
This university is trying to make a real effort to be a shining beacon when it comes to respecting everyone, and fighting discrimination and racism.
And so I'm very honored to be here.
And I do this a lot.
As I mentioned, kids love "What Would You Do?"
And that's another draw that I have, but while I'm there, and I talk about "What Would You Do?"
and the fun time we have shooting the show, I also get to inspire them and motivate them with my own story.
- That is fabulous.
And I know you get to visit other places around the country.
I mentioned to you, before we started recording this conversation, that was instrumental to me when I was in middle school and high school, getting to meet journalists working, because I could envision that as a possibility for myself.
- Exactly.
- As a career.
- You had another experience when you were younger that I want to highlight.
Before college, I understand you were in the program called Upward Bound.
And a lot of people watching may not be familiar with this.
I wanna to have you tell me about the program, and also what Upward Bound meant to you growing up.
- It was a life saver, and I'm sorry about the phone.
As a journalist, I should know that better than anyone.
(Fred laughing) - It's okay.
- It was a life saver.
It was a part of the war on poverty.
It was a government, a federal program, that the idea was, the feeling was, their motto, was that the only way out of poverty, poverty was through education.
Quite a thought, right?
And what the government did was that they took kids from every inner city school around the country who were not getting a great preparation for college, and give them extra courses in math, biology, and English on Saturdays, on the weekends.
And they would let us live on a college campus.
So for a kid like me, who would be the first generation student, it allowed me to feel what it would be like going to college.
And not only that, they helped me get my foot in the door for that first semester.
So, I wouldn't be the man I am today, I wouldn't be the journalist on ABC that I am today, had it not been for Upward Bound.
This wonderful program, that a lot of people today would call welfare.
You know, it's a government handout.
No.
For me, it was a lifeline.
And from thousands and thousands of kids like me, there are astronauts now, who were on Upward Bound.
There are lawyers, and doctors, and now, and also journalists.
- So important to mention.
John, following up on that, as a society, how do you think we can better educate people about the need for programs like Upward Bound?
And there are so many other programs that touch young people long before, even high school, to help improve not only their lives, but all of our lives, enrichens, you know, enrich society.
- Well, we just have to put ourselves in the shoes of those people.
It's hard for those of us who have been privileged, to care.
Because we don't know them, right?
"The them."
But like the Bible says, and a motto that you can take straight from the pages of "What Would You Do?"
in our programs.
And that is, the only way to fight all this, is to put yourself in the shoes of the victim.
What would you do if you couldn't afford college?
If you couldn't get into that university?
If you couldn't get that internship?
If you wouldn't get hired by that law firm, or that hospital, or that TV network?
How would you feel if your kids were having to suffer that?
And it's easy for someone who hasn't had to struggle, to not care.
You have to try real hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn't have all the luxuries that you've grown up with.
I was very lucky.
There but for the grace of God, go, I could well have wound up a lot of my friends in the Barrio in San Antonio.
Who never got a chance to be on Upward Bound.
Who never got a chance to go to college, or be picked up working an internship at a radio station, and get hired by a network.
So many of them wound up in jail, or dead, or on drugs, or in gangs.
Someone has to reach out to those folks.
And that's why I do what I do.
I try to do my part to remind them, "Listen, if I could do it, and I'm a migrant farm worker, former migrant worker who didn't speak English when he went to the first grade.
If I can do it, so can you."
- And you mentioned that experience earlier, let's follow up on that.
That your father, you were born in Texas, you lived there in Texas, and but your father lost his job.
And then you had to traveled to do farm work?
Talk to that experience.
- We had to do- - We had to do what a lot of Latino families in south Texas had to do back then when they didn't have jobs, they became migrant farm workers.
My father, my mother, my two sisters, and I.
You know, we got on the back of these trucks one summer, when I was 13 years old, and we joined a caravan of seven trucks with strangers, people we had no idea who they were, and we didn't know where we were going exactly.
We just knew we were gonna go work.
The whole family, I was 13 years old.
And we journeyed 1,700 miles from San Antonio, to North Port, Michigan, the cherry capital of the world, where we picked cherries for 75 cents a bucket.
And I remember teetering on this ladder, overlooking orchards, with my sisters.
And they would pay us 75 cents, Fred, for every bucket of cherries that we picked.
And it would take me two hours to fill that bucket with cherries.
75 cents for two hours.
And after we did that for six weeks, we did what all migrant farm workers do, we followed the crops, right?
And we went to Ohio, a little town called Swanton, outside of Toledo, where we picked tomatoes for 35 cents a bushel.
And man, I was a champion tomato picker.
(Fred laughing) I'd do a hundred bushels a day.
Well, back then, that's $35 a day.
And my father would do 130 bushels.
And my sisters contributed, and my mother contributed.
We learned the value, as so many families in America do, the value of pulling ourselves up by out bootstraps in times of adversity, and moving forward.
But I'll never forget being on my knees on the cold, hard ground at six in the morning with my father, Bruno.
Looking at a row of tomato plants, that for a young 13 year old boy's eyes, seemed to go on for miles and miles.
And my father Bruno, saying, "Juanito.
Do you wanna do this kind of work for the rest of your life?
Or do you want to get a college education someday?"
It was a no brainer.
You know?
- Yeah.
- I knew I didn't wanna do that kind of hard, backbreaking work for the rest of my life, but no one believed in me.
When I came back to school, my own teachers would say, "You know, it's great, John, that you wanna be a TV reporter, but we think you should try wood shop, or metal shop, or auto mechanics."
But thank God for my mother.
Man, my mother, Maria, she was the one who kept inspiring and pushing.
She would say, "Mijo, my son, it doesn't matter.
Don't be embarrassed about having to wear the same clothes to school every other day.
At least we wash them, right?
They're clean."
She would say, "Mijo, my son, don't be embarrassed about having to take bean and tortilla tacos for lunch."
When all the other kids are taking their fancy baloney and white bread.
She said, "That doesn't matter.
What matters is what's in here, in your brain, in your cabeza.
What's in here in your heart, in your corazón."
She was the one that kept me moving forward, pushing ahead.
- Yeah, that spirit of perseverance.
- [John] Yeah.
- In addition to that- - And a good mom.
- Yeah, and a good mom.
- Dad.
- And dad.
- In addition to that, having that experience growing up, makes you better connected to the people that you cover.
- [John] Yeah.
- The world that you're covering.
Let's talk about that.
And the importance of that, because of course, many journalists do not have that kind of experience growing up, and may not understand those issues, in the way that you do.
- Well they, you know, it's nothing against them.
I think many don't have that experience, and they're still darn good reporters, who have the compassion, and the understanding, and they give time to stories, and they can do just as good a job on reporting that story as I can.
It was just easier.
- But they have to be- - -Aware of it, right?
- Yeah.
- I mean they have to be- - I mean, they're aware.
- -aware, right.
- And there are a lot of- - -aware journalists out there doing great work.
It's easier for me because I experienced much of it.
And so right away it touches my heart, you know, it tugs at my heart right away.
'Cause I remember what it was like to be told you weren't good enough, and what it was like not to have opportunities that other people are given.
And what it's like to maybe live in a country where the government is run by the oligarchs, the rich dictators, and the poor people have very little.
I can relate to all that.
So that makes it a little bit easier for me.
And I think that's been, if I have any strength, that's been part of it.
- Do you think that, you know, you talked earlier about the fact that we also need diversity in terms of the management in journalism.
That there needs to be a better appreciation of this.
That having diverse backgrounds growing up, can enrich our coverage.
- Oh yeah, absolutely.
Otherwise, certain parts of our country go ignored, or misunderstood.
The immigration story's a big part of that.
- [Fred] Yes.
- You know, we all- - Especially when politicians call them criminals and rapists, and then it leads a lot of people to believe that, when people in power need that.
So we are the gatekeepers, we are the ones who have to make that correction, and remind America that no, these are who the real people are.
So when we go to the border, when I go to the border, I don't just talk to the border patrol.
Of course we should talk to them too.
And to politicians, and ranchers who live along there.
But I also make it a point to talk to the people crossing the border, talk to them in their own language, and try to get to the real story of why they're coming over.
And then you have a more well-rounded piece in the end, and America wins because we're better educated.
- Absolutely.
Well said.
- All right, man.
- John Quiñones.
- Thank you.
- Of ABC News.
- John, what an honor.
- Oh, thank you.
- Thank you for making time for WSIU.
- Of course, of course.
- And the community that didn't get to see you in person, to get to see you here, and talk about your experiences and career.
- It's been a pleasure, thank you.
- It's been a pleasure meeting you, and thank you for joining us on this special edition of "In Focus".
I'm Fred Martino.
Have a great week.
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