Mario A. Murillo is an American journalist, author, and teacher. He has worked in commercial, public, and community radio since 1986. [1] His experience includes previously hosting and producing Wakeup Call on WBAI, a Pacifica-owned station in New York. [2] Professor of Communication and Latin American Studies at Hofstra University, Murillo is also the author of Colombia and the United States: War, Unrest, and Destabilization and Islands of Resistance: Puerto Rico, Vieques and U.S. Policy.
His father was born in Subachoque, Cundinamarca, outside of Bogotá, Colombia, and his mother was from Moca, Puerto Rico. Mario was born in New York City.
He is Professor of Communication and Latin American Studies at Hofstra University, and is currently the Vice Dean of The Lawrence Herbert School of Communication. He teaches courses in Radio Journalism and Production, Media Studies, Latin American Studies and Peace Studies. A media scholar and award-winning journalist, he is an active member of the Advisory Boards of both Hofstra's Center for Civic Engagement and the center for "Race," Culture and Social Justice. In his over 30-years in radio he has served as Program Director, director of Public Affairs programming, and a host and producer at WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York, was a feature correspondent for NPR's Latino USA, and served as a regular guest host on WNYC New York Public Radio. He currently hosts a bi-weekly live radio show “Rumba Therapy” on WIOX Community Radio in Roxbury, in the Central Catskills region of New York, (WIOXRadio.org or 91.3FM), and is a faculty advisor and producer at WRHU 88.7FM, Hofstra University's award-winning, student-run, community-licensed radio station.
He is the author of Colombia and the United States: War, Unrest and Destabilization (Seven Stories, 2004), and Islands of Resistance: Puerto Rico, Vieques and U.S. Policy (Seven Stories, 2001), and has written and reported extensively about Latin America for a number of publications and journals. Much of his work has focused on U.S. policy in Latin America, and he has dedicated considerable time on grassroots community radio projects in rural communities in Colombia. He was a 2008-2009 Fulbright Scholar in Colombia, where he worked in the Universidad Pontificia la Javeriana in Bogotá in its department of social communication.
As a journalist, radio documentarian, writer and researcher, he has focused much of his attention on the cultural and social role public interest, community-oriented radio plays in local and national contexts, and considers citizen's media to be a fundamental tool of cultural affirmation, artistic expression, civic engagement, and political participation.
Murillo has a BA in Political Science and Journalism from New York University, and an MA, also from NYU, in Media Ecology.
Vieques, officially Isla de Vieques, is an island, town and municipality of Puerto Rico, and together with Culebra, it is geographically part of the Spanish Virgin Islands. Vieques lies about 8 miles (13 km) east of the mainland of Puerto Rico, measuring about 20 miles (32 km) long and 4.5 miles (7 km) wide. Its most populated barrio is the town of Isabel Segunda, the administrative center located on the northern side of the island. The population of Vieques was 8,249 at the 2020 Census.
Rubén Ángel Berríos Martínez is a Puerto Rican politician, international law attorney, writer, and current president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP). A former three-time senator, Berríos is a perennial PIP candidate for Governor of Puerto Rico. He led the Navy–Culebra protests that succeeded in the United States Navy abandoning the use of the Puerto Rican island of Culebra for military exercises and was a leader for the Cause of Vieques.
Pacifica Foundation is an American nonprofit organization that owns five independently operated, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations known for their progressive/liberal political orientation. Its national headquarters adjoins station KPFK in North Hollywood, California.
Ricardo Jiménez was a Puerto Rican member of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña who was sentenced to 90 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges. He was sentenced on February 18, 1981, and incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison. However, he was released early from prison, after President Bill Clinton extended a clemency offer to him on September 7, 1999.
WBAI is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic music. The station is owned by the Pacifica Foundation with studios located in Brooklyn and transmitter located at 4 Times Square.
Deepa Fernandes is one of the hosts of NPR's Here and Now. She has formerly hosted the WBAI radio program Wakeup Call and the nationally syndicated Pacifica radio news show Free Speech Radio News on the politically independent, anti-war Pacifica Radio Network. Fernandes has worked as a freelance producer for, among others, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Pacifica Radio.
Denisse Marie Oller is a journalist, documentarian, entrepreneur, author, chef, and healthy living advocate.
Ernesto "Chico" Álvarez Peraza is an American of Afro-Cuban origin artist of Latin American music. He was born in New York City but grew up in Cuba and currently lives in the state of New Jersey.
Miguel Antonio Caro Tobar was a Colombian scholar, poet, journalist, philosopher, orator, philologist, lawyer, and politician.
Jim Freund is a radio personality and a prominent figure in the speculative fiction community as host of the Pacifica Radio show Hour of the Wolf and as curator of the New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series.
Michael Deibert is an American journalist, author and researcher at the Centro de Estudos Internacionais at the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.
Mickey Waldman was a prominent radio personality/host and producer at influential WBAI in New York.
Nelson Antonio Denis is an American attorney, author, film director, and former representative to the New York State Assembly. From 1997 through 2000, Denis represented New York's 68th Assembly district, which includes the East Harlem and Spanish Harlem neighborhoods, both highly populated by Latinos.
Utrice C. Leid is a Trinidadian American, former activist in the Civil Rights Movement, and journalist. She was the managing editor of The City Sun and general manager of New York radio station WBAI. In 2004, The Miami Herald wrote that she "prides herself on never working in the mainstream media during her 34 years of journalism".
Luis López Nieves is Puerto Rican author.
Leila Cobo is a Colombian journalist, writer, novelist, pianist and television show host. She is noted for her coverage of Latin music for Billboard where she is currently the Chief Content Officer for Latin Music and Español, overseeing the brand's coverage and development of Latin music across all its platforms. These include billboard.com and billboardespanol.com, which Cobo launched, podcasts and video. Cobo also programs the annual Billboard Latin Music Week, widely regarded as the premiere gathering for the Latin industry, where she has hosted guests like Shakira, Romeo Santos, Peso Pluma and Carlos Santana.
Rossana Reguillo is a Mexican scholar known for researching youth, the city as a social space, the concept of "fear" as a social construct, and the relationship between communication, culture, and politics in Latin America. She currently holds a professor position at ITESO University and the Western Institute of Technology and Higher Education. Additionally, she has served as a visiting professor at New York University.
Miguel Ángel Rojas is a conceptual art and filmmaker. His work includes drawing, painting, photography, installations and video and is often related to contexts expanding on issues of sexuality, urban culture, systems of violence, substance abuse, and economic inequalities. He has been working as a photographer, painter and architect since the 1970s.
Andrés Jiménez Hernández, popularly known as "El Jíbaro", is a composer and singer of traditional Puerto Rican folk music and is that music genre's best known contemporary trovador linked to the Neofolkloric movement of the Nueva Canción.