Ricardo Quintana, 2017 winner
In 2015 Ricardo Quintana and a team of producers from TV Martí won an Emmy for Cambio de Ruta, a documentary on the recent Cuban immigration crisis.
Quintana began reporting on the developing immigration crisis in 2012. Thousands of Cubans were fleeing the country to the United States, by way of South America. The dangerous journey could take from 3 months to a year and often cost individuals their life savings.
Quintana traveled throughout several established routes, including remote sites such as the Darien Jungle in Colombia, the tiny Coastal City of Puerto Obaldia in Panamá, and the dangerous so-called “drug cartel war zone” at the US/Mexico border near Laredo, Texas. Along the way, he documented the dangers of the journey and told the personal stories of sacrifice and hope.
His reports sparked international interest on the issue and OCB became a source of information and a bridge for all of those Cubans stranded in these countries.
Today, changes in immigration laws have changed the way Cubans are migrating, but the stories continue. Quintana has followed up on the stories of Cubans who have reached U.S. soil, gotten married, graduated from school, and become U.S. citizens, as well as with others who were returned to Cuba or who stayed in countries along the route and are trying to start new lives.
For almost 20 years, Quintana has provided Cuban audiences with stories that inform and engage on a variety of important topics. Quintana started his career as a journalist in Havana, Cuba, but his quest for freedom of speech and expression forced him to leave his family and move to Miami in 1993. There he continued his work for various local radio stations until 1998 when he was hired as a reporter for Radio Martí. Through OCB, he reunited with his audience and started reporting the news freely without censorship. Quintana became a Multimedia Journalist in 2007 serving all of Martí platforms.