Gente de NAHJ: Fabianna Rincón wrote her first newspaper story at 7 and hasn’t stopped since
There’s a photo of Fabianna Rincón at 7 years old, sitting on her father’s lap, smiling. She’s holding up a copy of El Sol Latino, in which she’d penned a blurb about a recent birthday trip to Hershey Park, Penn.
Her father, a journalist, grins into the camera, his hand wrapped around his daughter’s waist.
Rincón, now 20, has gone on to publish several articles in English and Spanish for a host of newspapers, including El Tiempo Latino, El Sol Latino, Hunterdon County Democrat and NJ.com. If you ask Ricón, she would tell you that she’s only getting started.
“There are so many stories like mine that I just feel so [compelled] to tell,” Rincón said. “I’m also so passionate about telling stories directly to and directly tailored to the Latino community.”
Rincón, who grew up traveling to Venezuela, where her family is from, would sometimes join her father on the job — trailing behind him on the green baseball fields as he reported sports stories. Her mother also covered sports and met Rincón’s father on the job.
These formative experiences have impacted her own journalism trajectory, Rincón said. While her parents focused in those days largely on sports, she is interested in politics.
“I want to get into political coverage because of what I’ve lived through, because of this experience, because of what I’ve lost, because of what I’ve mourned,” she said. On her last few visits to Venezuela, she rode in a bulletproof car and stayed behind the walls of resort towns and gated communities.
The incoming senior participated last year in NAHJ’s student project, which forms the staff of the Latino Reporter and has produced Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award winning journalists. She came to the 2024 NAHJ national conference with internship offers from NBC10 Boston and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
Her parents have been cheering her on since her first piece about Hershey Park.
“You got this,” her father said over text as she walked the halls of the conference. “You are a diamond that only needs to be shined.”
Jacob Anthony Amaro is a reporter at NJ.com for Mosaic, where he writes stories about and for New Jersey’s diverse communities. He earned his bachelor’s in journalism from Rutgers-Newark and will continue his studies at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in the fall. His goal, no matter what the future holds, is to write stories that inform and empower his readers. He may be reached via email at jamaro2001 [at] gmail [dot] com and on LinkedIn.
Thanks Anthony Jacob Amaro. You did fine with Fabbyanne. I know her well. She is my great grand niece. You are great!