Rising Stars: Meet Rosy Zugasti

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rosy Zugasti.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México and I am the oldest and only sister of four siblings. I got interested in journalism when I was five years old. I had fun doing “interviews” at all family gatherings and telling stories but I decided I wanted to be a journalist after my cousin was kidnapped, raped, and murdered when both of us were ten years old and I saw how the media played an important part in investigating not only her murder but hundreds of murders of women and girls in my hometown. I studied in Mexico until high school and attended college in El Paso Tx where I graduated in 2006 with a major in communication and electronic media. I started my career as an intern in my last year of college at Univision 26 KINT in El Paso Tx but after I graduated went back to Ciudad Juarez where I had my first real job opportunity as a reporter for Radio News in a state-wide station. This was at the time when the narco war at the border was getting started. While working in radio, I was given the opportunity to anchor a little highlight newscast on cable tv which opened other doors for me on TV. I started working in Televisa, Ciudad Juarez in 2007 as a primetime weather anchor and graveyard reporter from 11 pm to 4:00 am, covering all the crime after hours. They gave me that shift to demonstrate I could be a good reporter with the worst of crime in the middle of the narco war. In 2011, I crossed the border back to Univision El Paso where I worked as a reporter focusing on investigative stories until 2015. I moved to Colorado in 2016, accepting an offer at KDEN Telemundo where I started the new consumer investigative unit and ended up as the main anchor until 2020. Since 2021 I am a national news correspondent for Univision network based here in Colorado. For now, being a correspondent is what works best for me because since I became a mom in 2019, my priority is my daughter, Bianca. And having to cover only national stories, not on a daily basis gives me the time to be with my daughter.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In Mexico, and in the middle of the narco war, where I started, there were not a lot of women journalists and I had to fight to win a place starting in the graveyard shift seeing the worst of the murders, torture, and crime in general. Also, I saw many of my coworkers getting killed for informing the reality that we lived in. It was very difficult to report so much crime in my hometown and also be careful not to be a target of crime. I got threatened for doing my job and very often got to be in dangerous places like in the middle of shootings. At the time, it was normal for me, but now I understand I am very fortunate to be alive.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am well known for my work as a journalist not only in my hometown Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, and the whole border region of el Paso Texas, New Mexico, etc. Here in Colorado, I specialized in consumer investigative stories and had the opportunity to help thousands of people, mostly with wage theft cases and other injustices. One of the biggest stories I got to work on was an investigation into the Mexican consul in Denver who ended up out of his position for several wrongdoings. I really enjoy being in Colorado because there are a lot of families from the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, and the border where I come from.

What was your favorite childhood memory?
My mother, who is a Doctor, got divorced when I was still a baby and she raised me like a single mother. I remember her studying before I went to bed and getting up to see her still studying. Little did I know she spent her nights studying to be the best she could be at medical school. I loved seeing her reading her books and letting me play with them (her books ended up all sketched by me).

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Rosy Zugasti
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RosyZugastiPeriodista
• Twitter: @RosyZugasti

Image Credits
Rosy Zugasti