Veteran journalist Ralph De La Cruz will join the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting this week as a reporter/blogger.
De La Cruz, a former reporter and columnist at newspapers in Florida, California and Texas, will highlight stories and provide context for news and investigative reporting from throughout Florida and Latin America. His blog will complement FCIR’s original investigative reporting from staff and the Watchdog Fund.
Ralph De La Cruz
“Each blog item will showcase stories about Florida and Latin America that will spur you to think and to question,” De La Cruz said.
De La Cruz, born in Cuba and bilingual, will draw from English- and Spanish-language journalism in Florida and abroad. De La Cruz hopes to build a community that will help identify and uncover the stories that deserve greater attention and scrutiny.
“We’ll be in this together,” De La Cruz said.
Most recently a columnist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, De La Cruz has also been a columnist for the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, Calif., and a reporter for The Miami Herald, where he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that covered the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew.
De La Cruz’s individual work has earned him more than a dozen national and regional awards, including the Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma and the California Bar Association’s Silver Medal.
After spending 25 years inside newsrooms of daily newspapers, De La Cruz is looking forward to FCIR’s online operation.
“Seek out and provide information that people should have, need to have. The mission is the same as when Rudyard Kipling penned stories for the Allahabad Pioneer, but without the constraints of paper,” De La Cruz said.
“No space issues. No time constraints.”
Have a tip for De La Cruz? He’s already checking his e-mail.