Sergio R. Bustos
Vice President for NewsHe joined WLRN as VP for News in January 2023 to lead the NPR affiliate's award-winning news team.
Bustos was a reporter for two decades at newspapers large and small, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, before becoming an editor at the Miami Herald in 2005, and since has served as editor of POLITICO Florida and deputy opinion editor for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Most recently, Bustos was Enterprise/Politics Editor for the USA Today Network-Florida’s 18 newsrooms.
Bustos also worked as regional manager with the local-journalism nonprofit Report for America will jumpstart efforts to secure resources for WLRN News’ ambitious plans. He was South regional manager for RFA, a non-profit that seeks to fill “news deserts” caused by the nationwide crisis in journalism.
Born in Santiago, Chile, and raised in Annandale, Va., Bustos began his journalism career at The Washington Post — delivering the newspaper as a teenager in suburban northern Virginia.
After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University, Bustos went to work as a reporter for newspapers in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley — the News-Virginian in Waynesboro and Daily News-Leader in Staunton — before becoming a general assignment reporter at the Wilmington, Del., News-Journal.
He later joined The Philadelphia Inquirer as a reporter after his News-Journal editor recruited him to the big-city newspaper.
At The Inquirer, he won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 1992 for a series of stories that revealed how courts and police routinely violated rights of Spanish-speaking farmworkers in southeastern Pennsylvania.
He also was among the lead reporters who exposed a scandal involving thousands of fraudulent absentee ballots that prompted a federal judge to nullify the election of a Democratic state senator. The Inquirer was later named as a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for the stories.
He was one of 10 journalists nationwide to be awarded a John and Catherine MacArthur Foundation grant to study at the University of Southern California’s Center for International Journalists, where he traveled and wrote extensively about Mexico and Cuba in 1992-1993.
Bustos spent more than six years as a Washington correspondent for the former Gannett News Service. He covered the contentious national debate over immigration and border security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, for Gannett’s southwestern newspapers, including The Arizona Republic.
He joined the Miami Herald as a first-time editor in 2005. He ran the teams covering police and courts, as well as Broward County, and he served as state and politics editor. He also was Sunday editor. In 2012, he supervised an award-winning investigation into a local congressman’s involvement in a campaign finance scandal, and oversaw coverage of several governor races and presidential elections. He co-authored a book, Miami's Criminal Past Uncovered, chronicling the city’s most notorious crimes, with Herald reporter Luisa Yanez in 2007.
Bustos returned to reporting in 2015 when he joined The Associated Press as a national political correspondent to cover the 2016 presidential campaign, assigned to cover candidates Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
He was later named editor of POLITICO Florida, where he edited a series of stories that led to the resignation of one of Florida’s most powerful state senators amid sexual harassment allegations from six women who were on the lawmaker’s staff or had lobbied him. He oversaw coverage of the Florida Legislature.
Before joining WLRN, he was Enterprise/Politics Editor for the USA Today Network-Florida’s 18 newsrooms. He coordinated coverage of the 2022 governor and U.S. Senate elections and worked with other newsrooms to cover Gov. Ron DeSantis’ controversial migrant relocation program and the devastating impact of Hurricane Ian.
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He defeated Democrat Nicole Locklin and a third candidate with no-party-affiliation in a race far closer than expected on Election Night. -
"We want every ballot to be counted and accurately reported," said Nicole Locklin. "Our investigations into the many anomalies of this election remain unresolved so we will continue our work." -
After U.S. Senate loss, Democrat Angie Nixon launches ‘Never Scared PAC’ to build political movement"We showed what's possible when everyday Floridians come together, and we're not walking away from that," she said. "Never Scared PAC is about building something that lasts — developing leaders, organizing our communities, and making sure working people have a real voice in the political and economic decisions that shape their lives." -
Latino voters turned out in record numbers in this year's midterm elections, driven by severe pocketbook pressures and an angry rejection of President Trump's aggressive immigration policies, according to nationwide poll released by UnidosUS and the Latino Community Foundation. -
Rodriguez’s campaign said Garcia publicly declared Salazar the winner before the recount was complete, citing the Miami Herald's coverage of Salazar's election night watch party. They also allege that Garcia's son-in-law is representing his opponent in the recount. -
"Through this campaign process, we constantly just talked about the kitchen-table issues that matter to the people of our state, lowering insurance costs, obviously lowering property taxes, the voters approved that," Donalds told CNN. -
In a statement, the longtime congressman said the Supervisors of Elections in Miami-Dade and Broward counties "report that 100% of their precincts have been fully and completely reported." -
Carlos Gimenez (CD-28), Jared Moskowitz (CD025), Oliver Gilbert III (CD-24), Lois Frankel (CD-23), Pia Dandiya (CD-22), Brian Mast (CD-21) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (CD-20) won their races. Two remained too close to call as of 11 p.m. Tuesday night. -
Consumers and health care advocates on Monday called on political candidates and elected officials to address the mounting financial pressure on Floridians seeking health insurance through the ACA, also known as Obamacare. -
A new poll of more than 700 Hispanic Floridians shows an electorate deeply worried about the rising cost-of-living, expressing broad support for the Amendment 3 property tax relief proposal and favoring Democrat David Jolly for governor slightly more than Republican Byron Donalds. -
In the gubernatorial contest, Republican Byron Donalds leads Democrat David Jolly by two percentage points, 49% to 47%, with 4% undecided. Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ashley Moody holds a four-point edge, 49% to 45%, against Democratic challenger Angie Nixon in the U.S. Senate race, with 5% undecided. -
The candidates are vying for Florida's newly created 25th Congressional District, a coastal stretch running from Delray Beach in Palm Beach County to Miami Beach in Miami-Dade County. Both candidates are Jewish and about 25% of the district is comprised of Jewish residents.
