Miami Herald executive editor to address ASU Cronkite School graduates

Aminda Marqués Gonzalez, the executive editor and vice president of the Miami Herald, will give the keynote convocation speech to the spring 2017 graduates of Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The ceremony will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 9, in downtown Phoenix at Comerica Theatre. More than 340 students are expected to graduate.

Marqués, who was named executive editor in 2010, is only the second woman in the Miami Herald’s 100-plus history to lead the newsroom. Under her direction, the Herald recently was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, along with the McClatchy Washington Bureau and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, for the Panama Papers, a cross-continental collaboration that exposed the secret world of offshore companies. The Herald also won the 2017 Pulitzer for Editorial Cartooning.

“Mindy Marqués is a leading voice in journalism with a well-earned reputation for excellence,” said Cronkite Dean Christopher Callahan. “We are thrilled to have her as our keynote speaker and look forward to celebrating graduation with our outstanding students.”

Marqués is a veteran of the Herald’s newsroom, having served as a metro reporter, assistant city editor and deputy metro editor as well as directing the newspaper’s local, state and community news operations.

In 2002, she was named Miami bureau chief for People magazine, overseeing coverage for the southeast U.S., the Caribbean and Latin America. She returned to the Miami Herald five years later as a multimedia editor for a new entertainment website. She served as the Sunday/features editor before being named managing editor.

Marqués is a 1986 graduate of the University of Florida, where she was honored in 2012 as an Alumni of Distinction by the College of Journalism and Communications. She was the 2016 recipient of the Presidential Award of Impact from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Marqués serves on the board of the Pulitzer Prizes and is president of the Florida Society of News Editors. She also is an advisory board member for the Journalism and Women Symposium and the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for Women in Communication at Florida International University.