ASU professor to receive Lifetime Achievement Award

Alfredo Corchado, a Southwest Borderlands Initiative Professor at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is receiving one of the highest honors from the region’s leading Latino journalism organization.

The California Chicano News Media Association is presenting Corchado with a Career Achievement Award for his 30-plus year career covering the border for news organizations such as The Dallas Morning News and his best-selling book “Midnight in Mexico.”

Corchado, who joined the Cronkite School in 2015 to co-lead the school’s bilingual border reporting program, will receive the award today at the 36th Annual CCNMA Scholarship Banquet at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. The banquet also will celebrate the partnership of the CCNMA with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. The CCNMA is located at the ASU California Center in Santa Monica, California.

“This is a poignant moment to be honored by CCNMA and NAHJ whose very members inspired me and paved the way for me to become a journalist,” Corchado said. “My goal today is to do the same for a new generation of journalists at the Cronkite School.”

Corchado was the Mexico City bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News for more than 20 years, covering Mexico’s drug cartels, organized crime and political corruption as well as U.S. policies in Latin America. In 2013, he published “Midnight in Mexico,” a memoir that chronicles a reporter’s search for home amid the backdrop of his native country’s deadly drug violence that has left tens of thousands killed or missing.

At the Cronkite School, Corchado leads the Cronkite News Borderlands Bureau with fellow veteran journalist and Southwest Borderlands Initiative Professor Angela Kocherga. Under their guidance, students cover immigration and border issues on both sides of the border. Stories are featured on Cronkite News, the student-produced news division of Arizona PBS.

“For more than three decades, Alfredo has brought to light important issues from the U.S.-Mexico border with his powerful and moving coverage,” said Christopher Callahan, dean of the Cronkite School. “We are thrilled to have him teaching and mentoring the next generation of borderlands journalists and congratulate him on this well-deserved honor.”

Corchado started his career as a reporter at the El Paso Herald Post while completing his degree at the University of Texas at El Paso. He reported for The Wall Street Journal in Philadelphia and Dallas before joining The Dallas Morning News.

He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and a visiting fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. He is working on a second book, “Shadows at Dawn, The Last Great Mexican Migration.” He is the recipient of several major national journalism awards, including the Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 2007 and the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Prize from Colby College in 2010.

The CCNMA is a nonprofit, professional organization that promotes diversity in the news media by providing encouragement, scholarships and educational programs for Latinos pursuing careers in journalism. The organization’s mission is to foster an accurate and fair portrayal of Latinos in the news and to promote the social, economic and professional advancement of Latino journalists.