Getting To Know....Rick Sanchez

In the coming months we're going to give you a chance to get to know your favorite CNN personalities a little better. We start with Rick Sanchez, anchor of CNN Newsroom on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Rick also gives updates from the CNN en Español anchor desk on weekends with Claudia Palacios at 8:30pm.


1. What was your big break?

A WCCO/CBS scholarship to study Journalism at the University of Minnesota. My parents are immigrants who never exceeded 11,000 thousand dollars a year in annual income. Without the scholarship, I likely would not have been able to become a journalist.

2. What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt? What one would you dislike attempting?

I love sports, would love to coach baseball or football or broadcast baseball or football. I could never see myself as a politician; I wonder how most of them can look at themselves in the mirror at the end of the day.

3. What's on your iPod? What's in your Netflix queue? What was the last book you read (or the one that you're currently reading)?

CNN just gave me an iPod, I have no idea how it works. I’ve never listened to music of any type except background noise; I think it gets in the way of thinking. Never owned a stereo, never watched music videos. No Netflix, more fun to take my kids to blockbuster a block away and roam the isles and then argue at the check-out counter about why they can't get candy. Books: "After Fidel" by Brian Latell and "Quantum Golf, the path to golf mastery" by Kyell Enhager.

4. Please tell us a little about the off camera Rick Sanchez... Your family, hobbies, favorite authors and favorite episodic television.

Four kids, a wife, a dog and two turtles. Nuff said! No seriously, like most people, my life is a balancing act between work and home. Sometimes it's the squeakiest wheel that gets the immediate attention and you just hope that everyone and everything is getting the appropriate attention. I wouldn't trade my blessings for anything, but really, I'm just a dad who spends a part of every day wondering if he's doing right by his family -- while never quite feeling quite like I've nailed it.

5. What are the essentials when traveling to cover a story?

As I sit here and write these answers, I’m sitting in the hotel lobby at the Marriott in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. I’m covering the Rios summit between Latin American presidents, yes; there are other presidents in Latin America besides castor and Chavez. The essential to traveling to cover a story is your crew: a good producer who's organized and a shooter who's technically savvy. If I don't have to think about logistics etc, I’m free to work the story.

6. What's your favorite must have gadget?

TiVo, or DVR or whatever you call it.

7. As a child what was your favorite toy, vacation place and favorite teacher?

When we first came to the U.S. from Cuba, we were so poor my parents could not afford to buy us toys. None! My brother and I found plastic toy soldiers buried in the ground one day and played with them for years, it was our first and most treasured toy collection in America.

8. Live television can be unpredictable -- can you tell us about an on air moment that didn't go quite as planned?

I once transposed a word and embarrassed myself by saying that "ling ling, the panda bear loaned to us by the Chinese republic had gone berserk and (the copy said 'mauled' it's trainer), I said balled his trainer. Oops! I think the floor crew is still rolling around on the ground laughing.

9. What's been your most difficult assignment as a journalist to date?

Covering Cuba and the Castro Revolution. It’s hard to separate the personal from the professional when it's the country you were born in.

10. If you could pick one story from history to cover, what would be your dream story be?

The McCarthy era, I wonder if I would have had the guts to say, “this is wrong.” In many ways I see comparisons to what we're living now.

11. What is your guilty pleasure?

Peanut butter milkshakes and flaming oxtail.

12. Where is your favourite place in the entire world?

Any place where I’m surrounded by my wife and kids. Preferably Christmas morning.

13. When did you decide that you wanted to be a journalist? What attracted you to this professional? If journalism wasn't your initial career goal, what was?

It was decided for me; some professors approached me and said they wanted to recommend me for a broadcast journalism scholarship at the University of Minnesota. They said I had to take a bunch or tests and interviews. They said only three students would be chosen and there were five thousand entrants. I remember telling them it was a waste of time because no body on TV in the U.S. looked like me, they were all white men. I applied, I was chosen and the rest is history.


We want to thank Rick for taking the time to share a bit of himself with us. He's one very interesting guy. I've never had the pleasure of trying flaming oxtail. But if it's a RS favorite maybe we should all give it a try?

We'll be doing this again next week with Kyra Phillips. If you have anyone you'd like to request for an interview or suggestions for questions we'd love to hear from you. ~ Phebe

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