Tim Padgett
Americas EditorTim Padgett is the Americas Editor for WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida.
Padgett has reported on Latin America for more than 30 years — including for Newsweek as its Mexico City bureau chief and for Time as its Latin America and Miami bureau chief — from the end of Central America's civil wars to the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations. He has interviewed more than 20 heads of state.
In 2005, Padgett received Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize for his body of work in Latin America. 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.
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 and studied in Caracas, Venezuela, at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. He has been an adult literacy volunteer and is a member of the Catholic poverty aid organization St. Vincent de Paul.
Contact Tim at tpadgett@wlrnnews.org
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Venezuelan democracy champion María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, but on Monday Cuban exiles — who see Venezuela's struggle intertwined with Cuba's — recounted the big part they played in nominating her from Miami. -
José Daniel Ferrer is founder of the dissident Patriotic Union of Cuba, or UNPACU. He was arrested during the historic mass protests against the regime in July of 2021, and he’d since been in prison in Santiago. -
Friday's announcement that Venezuelan democracy champion María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize also lifts a diaspora facing deportations in the U.S. as well as a brutal regime at home. -
A new UNICEF report found that the resulting infrastructure breakdown has led to food scarcity, meaning almost 300,000 Haitian children under age 5 will suffer malnutrition this year. -
Misinformation remains a problem on Spanish-language radio in Latino communities like Miami's, but monitoring it is a time-consuming challenge. Could a new A.I. tool be a better watchdog? -
Three years after Democrat-led investors bought two prominent Miami stations, critics say the plan to steer Spanish-language radio in a more moderate, professional direction has run aground. The buyers point to rough local media economics — and politics. -
A new Bendixen & Amandi survey finds a plurality of Miami-Dade voters oppose using the U.S. military to oust Venezuela's dictatorship — despite the county's large, pro-Trump Venezuelan community. It suggests the idea lacks national support as well. -
Miami-Dade is home to the U.S.’s largest Venezuelan expat community. So the survey asks residents if President Trump should use the U.S. military to oust the brutal dictatorship of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. -
COMMENTARY The English-only furor over Bad Bunny's Super Bowl gig disingenuously disregards America's historical reality — but so does a Spanish-only mindset that many immigrants still embrace. -
COMMENTARY Across the Americas, the "terrorism" charge is being leveled so recklessly by both the right and left that everyone is now considered a terrorist — which creates an atmosphere for terrorism. -
The Palmetto Bay council is calling on Councilman Steve Cody to resign for his controversial remarks after the recent killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — but many in the South Dade village, including its vice mayor, argue Cody should be removed for other reasons. -
Human Rights Watch and the Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners in Venezuela have documented 19 cases of detainees, many with ties to opposition political parties, who have been denied contact with their families and lawyers since their arrest.
