John Quiñones is an ABC News correspondent who reports across
“20/20,” “Nightline” and “Good Morning America.” During
his 40-year tenure at ABC News, he has reported extensively for all
programs and platforms and served as anchor of “What Would You
Do?” and “Primetime.”

Recently, Quiñones has been on the frontlines of ABC News’
“Uvalde: 365” series, reporting from Uvalde, Texas, in the
aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary. For “20/20,”
Quiñones extensively reported on Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen,
who was brutally murdered and sparked a #MeToo movement in the
military. Quiñones’ reporting on Guillen included an exclusive
interview with Ryan McCarthy, secretary of the Army. Following his
reporting on Guillen, the U.S. military made major changes in how they
handle sexual harassment cases, and Congress passed the I Am Vanessa
Guillen bill.

In 2021, Quiñones conducted the first exclusive network television
interview with Mexican professional boxer Canelo Álvarez, who won
multiple world championships in four different weight classes. The
report was featured in a primetime ABC News Hispanic Heritage Month
special and on “Nightline.”

While Quiñones covered the Chilean miners’ disaster in 2010, he was
the first journalist out of thousands to get an exclusive interview
with the first survivor, Mario Sepulveda, who spoke about their
horrendous ordeal. Other headline-making interviews include an
exclusive with singer/actor Marc Anthony, who, for the first time,
spoke about his separation from Jennifer Lopez and their pending
divorce.

Quiñones extensively covered a religious sect in northern Arizona
that forced its young female members to participate in polygamous
marriages. Other reports include going undercover with a hidden camera
to reveal how clinics performed unnecessary surgical procedures as
part of a major nationwide insurance scam, following along with a
group of would-be Mexican immigrants as they attempted to cross into
the U.S. via the treacherous route known as “The Devil’s
Highway,” and traveling to Israel for a CINE Award-winning report
about suicide bombers.

In September 1999, Quiñones anchored a critically acclaimed ABC News
special entitled “Latin Beat,” focusing on the wave of Latin
talent sweeping the U.S., the impact of the recent population
explosion and how it will affect the nation as a whole. He received an
ALMA Award from the National Council of La Raza. He also contributed
reports to ABC News’ unprecedented 24-hour, live, global “The New
Millennium” broadcast, which won the George Foster Peabody Award.

Quiñones’ reports for “20/20” include an in-depth look at the
unprecedented lawsuit against the Cuban government by a woman who
claimed she unknowingly married a spy and an exclusive interview with
a Florida teenager who brutally killed her adoptive mother. He was
honored with a Gabriel Award for his poignant report that followed a
young man to Colombia as he made an emotional journey to reunite with
his birth mother after two decades. Other stories originating from
Central America include political and economic turmoil in Argentina
and civil war in El Salvador. During the 1980s, he spent nearly a
decade in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama,
reporting for “World News Tonight.”

Quiñones won seven national Emmy® Awards for his work on
“Primetime Live,” “Burning Questions” and “20/20.” He
received an Emmy for his coverage of the Congo’s virgin rainforest,
which also won the Ark Trust Wildlife Award. In 1990, he received an
Emmy for “Window in the Past,” a look at the Yanomami Tribe. He
received a National Emmy Award for his work on the ABC documentary
“Burning Questions: The Poisoning of America,” which aired in
September 1988.

In 2024, John was honored with the Distinguished Journalist Award
presented by DePaul University’s Center for Journalism Integrity &
Excellence and became a member of the NATAS Silver Circle. In 2022,
Quiñones received the Lifetime Achievement Award from MALDEF (Mexican
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), the country’s oldest
and most prominent Latino civil rights organization; was named a
“Fellow of the Society” by the Society of Professional
Journalists; and received the President’s Award for Journalism
Excellence from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. In
2021, Quiñones received the Carr Van Anda Award for his “enduring
contributions to journalism” from the E.W. Scripps School of
Journalism at Ohio University, as well as the “Inspire: Visionary
Leadership Award” from the Anne Frank School in San Antonio for
“What Would You Do?” scenarios that shined a light on antisemitism
in the United States. In 2019, he received RTDNA’s John F. Hogan
Award for national and international reporting.

Quiñones was also honored with a World Hunger Media Award and a
citation from the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for “To Save
the Children,” his 1990 report on the homeless children of Bogota.
Among his other prestigious awards are the First Prize in
International Reporting and the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for his piece
on “Modern Slavery — Children Sugar Cane Cutters in the Dominican
Republic.”

Quiñones joined ABC News in June 1982 as a general assignment
correspondent based in Miami, providing reports for “World News
Tonight with Peter Jennings” and other ABC News broadcasts. He was
one of the few American journalists reporting from Panama City during
the U.S. invasion in December 1989.

Prior to joining ABC News, he was a reporter with WBBM-TV in Chicago.
He won two Emmy Awards for his 1980 reporting on the plight of
migrants from Mexico. From 1975 to 1978, he was a news editor at KTRH
radio in Houston, Texas. During that period, he also was an
anchor/reporter for KPRC-TV.

Quiñones received a Bachelor of Arts in speech communications from
St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas. He received a master’s
from the Columbia School of Journalism. Quiñones received two
honorary degrees: In 2016, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane
Letters from Utah Valley University and, in 2014, a Doctor of Letters
from Davis & Elkins College.
