Maria Elena Salinas

María Elena Salinas
Salinas interviewing United States Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015
Born	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles
Awards	2017 NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame

María Elena Salinas is an American broadcast journalist, news anchor, and author. Called the "Voice of Hispanic America" by the New York Times, Salinas is one of the most recognized Hispanic female journalists in the United States. She is the co-anchor of Noticiero Univision, the primary evening news broadcast on Univision, and the co-host of the news magazine program Aquí y Ahora (Here and Now).

Salinas has been working for more than three decades in the U.S. and in 18 Latin American countries. She has interviewed Latin American heads of state, rebel leaders, dictators, and every United States president since Jimmy Carter.

Salinas began as a reporter, anchor and public-affairs host for KMEX-TV, the Univision affiliate in Los Angeles, in 1981. She became the anchor of the national Spanish-language news program Noticiero Univision in 1987.

She has interviewed figures such as former US Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; Manuel Noriega, the former military dictator of Panama; Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega; and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation spokesman Subcomandante Marcos. She has also interviewed celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez,Ricky Martin and Gloria Estefan.

She was among the first female journalists in wartime Baghdad.

Salinas participated in the bilingual national Democratic presidential candidate debate on Hispanic issues in 2004, and again in 2007 co-hosting the first Democratic and Republican presidential candidate forums in Spanish on the Univision Network.

In 2017 she began an English-language crime program The Real Story with María Elena Salinas, on Investigation Discovery.

She herself has been interviewed by Katie Couric Bill Moyers, and others.