Leyla Santiago
Leyla Santiago
Leyla Santiago is an Emmy award winning Journalist based in Mexico City, Mexico. She is a Correspondent for CNN. [1]
Education
Leyla Santiago pictured in October 2015
Santiago received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Florida. [1]
Career
Prior to joining CNN in 2016, Santiago was an anchor and reporter for WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she and her team won the prestigious Alfred I. DuPont award for the documentary 'The Journey Alone,' about the surge in illegal immigration of unaccompanied minors from Central America and Mexico. [1]
She had traveled to the Rio Grande Valley, traced the path of the children and investigated how the crisis impacted North Carolina. [1]
Santiago has also served as a morning anchor for KBAK/KBFX in Bakersfield, California. She was also a reporter for KTUU in Anchorage, Alaska, and for NBC29 in Charlottesville, Virginia. [1]
Controversy
In July 2020, Santiago, while reporting live from South Dakota, told anchor Jake Tapper, "Kicking off the Independence Day Weekend, President Trump will be at Mount Rushmore, where he’ll be standing in front of a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans." The statement made on national television was not well-received by a majority of viewers, who took to Twitter to call out the network for its biased reporting.[18][19]
Many of them pointed out that Mount Rushmore has been visited by several former presidents, which was rather glorified by the same media network. CNN is also being called out for their choice of words while describing Mount Rushmore as a symbol of slavery. One user wrote, "I'm old enough to remember when CNN did not consider Mount Rushmore a symbol of Evil. When we were supposed to like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt." [18][19]
"I look forward to CNN showing reruns of 39 years of corporate history in which they consistently refer to Mount Rushmore 'a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans'.
I'll wait," tweeted another.
Another agitated user wrote, "And Mount Rushmore has been there for how many years?
And how many Presidents have been there???
@CNN is getting crazier if that's even possible!
Holy moly I think my dog is more sensible than these idiots."
Acolades
In 2010, she won Emmy awards for her coverage of wildfires in California, and the crippling winter storm in Raleigh in 2014.
In 2011, the Associated Press presented her with the Mark Twain award for best anchor. [1]
Personal Life
She is Puerto Rican and speaks English and Spanish. [1]