Tim Padgett
Tim Padgett is the Americas editor for Miami NPR affiliate WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida. He has reported on Latin America for almost 30 years - for Newsweek as its Mexico City bureau chief from 1990 to 1996, and for Time as its Latin America bureau chief in Mexico and Miami (where he also covered Florida and the U.S. Southeast) from 1996 to 2013.
Padgett has interviewed more than 20 heads of state, from Brazil to Mexico, and he was one of the few U.S. correspondents to sit down with the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. He has covered every major Latin American and Caribbean story from the end of the Central American civil wars of the 1980s to NAFTA and the Colombian guerrilla conflict of the 1990s; to the Brazilian boom, the Venezuelan revolution and Mexican drug war carnage of the 2000s; to the current normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.
In 2005, Padgett received Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize, the oldest international award in journalism, for his body of work from the region. In 2016 he won a national Edward R. Murrow award for the radio series "The Migration Maze," about the brutal causes of - and potential solutions to - Central American migration. His 1993 Newsweek cover, “Cocaine Comes Home,” won the Inter-American Press Association’s drug coverage award.
Padgett is an Indiana native and a graduate of Wabash College. He received a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School before studying in Caracas, Venezuela, at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. He started his career at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he led the paper's coverage of the 1986 immigration reform.Padgett has also written for publications such as The New Republic and America andhas been a frequent analyst on CNN, Fox and NPR, as well as Spanish-language networks such as Univision.
Padgett has been an adult literacy volunteer and is a member of the Catholic anti-poverty organization St. Vincent de Paul. He currently lives in Miami with his wife and two children.
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One of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign pledges was to make Israel the first foreign country he visits in office. DeSantis came to South Florida... -
Last week President Trump threatened to close the U.S. southern border because record numbers of Central American migrants are arriving there –... -
It’s been less than a month since the visitor visas for Cubans coming to the U.S. were scaled down. A lot. They used to be good for five years and you... -
Back in April, Nicaragua erupted in protests calling for the ouster of President Daniel Ortega – who’s ruled the poor Central American country for 24 of... -
One of the four diplomats working at the Venezuelan Consulate in Miami issued a video recognizing National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó as interim... -
Venezuela’s humanitarian and human rights crisis is one of the worst South America has ever seen. So a Miami lawmaker helped introduce a bill in... -
Leonys Martín was the first Cuban baseball player Paul Minoff ever represented. Minoff, an attorney with GrayRobinson in Fort Lauderdale, was astonished... -
Last month Major League Baseball and communist Cuba agreed to let Cubans play pro ball in the U.S. – without having to defect. But now the Trump... -
Turns out Kathy Ann Paul – aka Sweet Hand Kathy – is as capable a DJ as she is a baker. Right now, when you walk into her Miami Gardens restaurant –... -
The big news from Cuba this week was that the communist government is allowing people more Internet access. Another official move may help them actually...
