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Hispanic journalists are among the most influential and respected icons in all of television. Leading figures like Jorge Ramos, María Elena Salinas, José Díaz-Balart, Ilia Calderón, Cristina Saralegui, Maria Hinojosa, Tom Llamas, Ana Cabrera, Soledad O'Brien, and Maria Celeste Arraras have educated, informed, and made an impact on millions of Hispanic viewers. From the trailblazing activism of Cesar Chavez to the Supreme Court nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, these journalists have conveyed the Hispanic perspective to a national audience through both English and Spanish language media.
- In May 1968, labor leader Cesar Chavez appears on Today to announce a boycott of all grapes produced in California.
- Geraldo Rivera's award-winning report on the abuse at the Willowbrook State School inspires John Lennon to organize a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in 1972.
- Juan Williams is the author of Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965 (1987), a companion to the acclaimed documentary PBS series about the Civil Rights Movement.
- With a successful talk show, launched in 1989, and her own magazine, Cristina Saralegui is called the “Spanish-Cuban Oprah.”
- Host of Latino USA since 1992, Maria Hinojosa is NPR's first Latina correspondent and PBS's first woman to anchor and executive produce a national news series.
- In 1994, the third season of MTV's The Real World depicts out gay cast member Pedro Zamora's struggle with AIDS. Zamora, age twenty-two, dies the day after the season finale, and was memorialized in a video tribute from the White House by U. S. President Bill Clinton.
- In 1996, José Díaz-Balart becomes the first Cuban-American to host a network news program when he anchors the CBS News's This Morning.
- In 1996, Soledad O'Brien hosts MSNBC's The Site, in which she interacts with a virtual character known as Dev Null.
- In 2002, iconic news anchor Jorge Ramos creates the first book club in history of Hispanic television, Despierta Leyendo.
- On August 8, 2009, Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in as the first Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice. She cites the TV series Perry Mason as her inspiration to become a lawyer.
- In her four decades as a TV journalist, María Elena Salinas has won multiple Emmys, a Peabody Award, Gracie Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.
- In 2008, Tom Llamas becomes the first TV journalist embedded with the Coast Guard during a human smuggling interdiction at sea.
- Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta is the main subject of the acclaimed 2017 documentary Dolores, produced by Benjamin Bratt and Carlos Santana, among others.
- In 2018, actress Diane Guerrero, daughter of undocumented parents, presents a look at United States immigrant laws in an installment of EPIX's America Divided.
- A year after one of Mexico's most tragic events, Discovery en Español premieres Sept19embre relato de un sismo, a 2018 documentary that documents the strength and solidarity of the Mexican people living through a devastating earthquake.
- In 2018, Univision host Luis Sandoval comes out in an emotional speech during a live broadcast on the popular morning show ¡Despierta América!
- In 2019, Verizon hosts a Hispanic Heritage Month event with Claudia Romo Edelman, activist and founder of the We Are All Human Foundation, which was seen on HuffPost's Facebook page.
- As host and correspondent, Paola Ramos focuses on Latinx issues for Vice News. She was formerly deputy director of Hispanic Media for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
- The Pushouts, which told the inspirational story of professor Victor Rios who works with marginalized youth, debuts on Voces in 2019.
- In 2021, POV features seven powerful Latin American and Latinx-focused documentaries, marking "a historic moment for Latinx narrative on PBS."
- In 2021, ICARO Media Group and TV Azteca launches the premium app Azteca Now giving viewers access to ADN40 24/7 News Channel and acclaimed telenovelas, becoming one of the most widely distributed video apps in the world.