Editor's Note

Editor’s note: Pablo Guzmán, through activism and journalism, made a difference

The Young Lords minister of communication became a fixture of New York’s press corps after the group disbanded in 1975.

Young Lords Party member Pablo Guzmán attends a Rainbow Coalition meeting at the Lords’ office in Manhattan on June 7, 1969.

Young Lords Party member Pablo Guzmán attends a Rainbow Coalition meeting at the Lords’ office in Manhattan on June 7, 1969. Bev Grant/Getty Images

By Ralph R. Ortega

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I first met Pablo Guzmán, the veteran New York City journalist who died Nov. 26 at the age of 73, when I was a teen watching him report for WNEW in the 1980s. He went on to work for WNBC and later WCBS until 2013, experiencing poor health in the years that followed. It was while he worked for WCBS in the late 1990s that I got to know him while I was a reporter for the Daily News. He was one of the journalists I often ran into covering breaking news. I remember being familiar with his voice, sharp looks and charm from watching him on TV for years.

That’s also when I came to know about his previous life as a member of the Young Lords, the Puerto Rican activist group that staged well-publicized street actions that highlighted neglect in struggling communities, including in the South Bronx and East Harlem. Guzmán was the group’s minister of information, who spoke to the press. “When he came into the Lords, he already had an idea that we needed to control our own narrative, that we had to be able to dictate to the mainstream media what our story was, and what we were about,” said former Daily News columnist Juan González, another Young Lord who followed a path into journalism after the group disbanded in 1975.

I speak for journalists inspired by how Guzmán, González and other Lords who, after their activism, found a new calling that could make as much of a difference. It’s a fitting legacy, especially for Guzmán, who showed so many of us how to do the job of delivering the news.

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