Boris Sanchez, his voice booming, brows bold, arms crossed, eyes peeled. The correspondent and anchor for CNN visited MLEC, his old time high school, to visit the Journalism class, giving insight on his road to an Emmy and journalistic success.
“Be realistic,” Sanchez said, “I’m here to crush dreams,” he added, stressing the importance of hard work, sacrifice and luck.
He interacted with the class, asked questions, and challenged them to think. Why report? Why write? Why investigate? He asked.
At the core of journalism, he said, is “Truth”. The job of a journalist is to inform people and to provide information, hoping that it will lead to change; change, he said, results from votes that could possible influence our democracy.
During his time at MLEC, Sanchez said he wished he had some of the opportunities and the foundation available to students now, such as an understanding of history and the knowledge of logical fallacies, emphasizing that they are key tools needed for the occupation of journalism.
These tools feed curiosity. And a journalist “needs to have a relentless thirst for knowledge,” he said.
It is “crucial” for a journalist to want to know everything, and to know how to ask the same question in different ways to get every last bit of information possible.
His advice, however, was not limited to journalism. Whatever career path students choose, he said, “devote yourself to your craft.” From passion – to learn, succeed, improve — comes a desire to be great.
“There are people like myself that have a relentless pursuit of greatness.” His just so happened to be Journalism.
As an example, Sanchez, a Miami Heat fan, spoke passionately about his favorite player Alonzo Mourning.
“He overcame all odds. The doctors told him he would never play again. But he pushed and pushed and made a return to the 2006 NBA as a Heat player to play in the finals,” Sanchez explained.
“I’ve never seen such passion in someone’s play. Determination. After everyone telling him no, that he could not do it, he did it. Every day he wears that ring. He is a champion.”
Like Mourning, Sanchez did what no one else would – he worked harder than everyone around him, and it paid off.
After graduating from MLEC in 2004, then Miami-Dade College, and finally Syracuse, he worked hard to get to where he is now.
Sanchez’s career began in Redding, California, working for ABC, then down to down to Denver to work for FOX, then to where he is now, New York, as a correspondent for CNN. Still he said, in his heart, he wished to return to Miami and to his roots, where WSVN anchor Rick Sanchez, whom he believed to be a long-lost cousin, first inspired his interest in reporting. And this offer came “at the right time.”
His grandfather, who inspired his family’s love of justice and democracy, passed away in January. His sister is expecting twins.
“Not only was this the best offer I’ve had to work in Miami,” he said, “but it also came at a time when there good reasons to be closer to home.”
“Before I was born, I was initially predisposed to fight for democracy,” he said, as he and his parents are from Cuba, a communist country. It is part of what motivates his drive for life, including his thirst for greatness.
Now that drive has brought him home, where it all started, where he will undoubtedly continue his “relentless pursuit” of knowledge.