Rafael Olmeda is a husband, stepfather, father, reporter, teacher, advocate for diversity in media and advocate for efforts to find a cure for ALS. He’s taught grammar and journalism, written about crime and other features, and lobbied Congress about net neutrality and the effects of media consolidation on minority media ownership/ coverage of local communities. He is a board member (at large) of the Society of Professional Journalists and former president of UNITY: Journalists of Color and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
For more than 20 years, he has been a journalist at the South Florida Sun Sentinel, sharing in the 2018 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service.