All-American Presidential Forums on PBS" Moderated by Tavis Smiley

REPUBLICAN FORUM JOURNALISTS

Ray Suarez
Public Broadcasting Service

Ray Suarez joined the nightly news program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in October 1999 as a Washington-based senior correspondent. He's responsible for conducting news-making interviews, studio discussions and debates and reporting from the field, as well as serving as a backup anchor.

The veteran broadcast journalist came to PBS from National Public Radio, where he hosted the nationwide call-in news program Talk of the Nation. Suarez previously covered local, national and international stories for NBC affiliate WMAQ in Chicago and was a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN. He's also worked as a producer for the ABC Radio Network in New York, a reporter for CBS Radio in Rome and for various American and British news services in London.

He anchors the monthly public radio foreign affairs series America Abroad for PRI and is the narrator for American RadioWorks, the documentary unit of American Public Media. During 2004, he was an essayist for BBC Radio, joining a group of U.S.-based writers on a new program, State of the Union.

Suarez has written two books, In the Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration, which was a critical and commercial success, and The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America, which explores the intersection of organized religion and politics. He has contributed to several other books, and his articles have been published in various publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune.

Over the years, he has narrated, anchored or reported many special programs and documentaries for public radio and television.

Suarez holds a B.A. in African history from New York University and an M.A. in the social sciences from the University of Chicago.

He shared in NPR's 1993-94 and 1994-95 duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Awards for on-site coverage of the first all-race elections in South Africa and the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, respectively. He has been honored with the Ruben Salazar Award from the National Council of La Raza, Current History Magazine's Global Awareness Award, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from NYU and a Professional Achievement Award from the University of Chicago. He's also a winner of the Benton Fellowship in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Chicago and a Chicago Emmy Award.

A life member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Suarez was a founding member of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists.