Maria Elena Salinas Profile

Maria Elena Salinas is an American award-winning journalist and author. She has currently worked as CBS News a contributor since 2019, a role in which she reports across multiple CBS News broadcasts and platforms.

Maria Elena Salinas Career

In a career spanning almost four decades, Salinas has interviewed world leaders and reported nearly every significant national and international news story of our day. Her career has received top honors in broadcasting, including Emmys, Peabody, Gracie Awards, Edward R. Murrow Award, and Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Televised Political Journalism.

Although at CBS News, Salinas has contributed to the coverage of the 2020 election network, including the coverage of Super Tuesday and the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Salinas also anchored the poignant CBS News documentary “Pandemia: Latinos In Crisis,” an hour-long, sweeping look at the Latinx culture, along with other colorful groups that continue to bear the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic while playing key roles throughout the world.

For “48 Hours,” Salinas investigated the suicide of a college student and the worldwide hunt for her murderer. Salinas has contributed to the special edition of CBS News’ “Eye on America,” documentary series, which looked at how families around cities across the country and once paycheck, slipped through gaps and found themselves homeless.

Most recently, Salinas hosted “The Real Story with Maria Elena Salinas,” a mystery series for Investigation Discovery. It also covered the presidential race for Telemundo in Mexico in 2018. Salinas contributed to CBS News in 2016, focusing on the part Hispanics would play in the “CBS Sunday Morning.” election. While at Univision, she was co-host of “Noticiero Univision” and co-host of “Aquí y Ahora,” a news magazine show for Univision.

A dynamic and bilingual journalist, Salinas has been interviewing every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter. She’s at home interviewing news writers including Manuel Noriega, the ousted Panamanian tyrant, and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega as she sits down with Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and Gloria Estefan. Salinas was one of the first female journalists in Baghdad during the war.

Quick Facts About Maria Elena Salinas

She engaged in the bilingual dialogue on Hispanic issues in 2004 and co-hosted Univision’s first Democratic and Republican presidential campaign debates in Spain in 2007. From 2001 to 2011, Salinas wrote a weekly syndicated column in both English and Spanish. She was also the author of the 2006 autobiography, “I Am My Father’s Daughter, Living a Life Without Secrets.” Salinas is a founder member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and has given scholarships to thousands of students in her name for over two decades.

She is now on the board of the Hispanic Scholarship Board. Salinas started her career as a writer, anchor, and public affairs correspondent for KMEX-TV, Univision’s Los Angeles affiliate, in 1981.

Maria Elena Salinas Age

Salinas is 67 years old as of 2021. She was born in August 1954 in Los Angeles, California, United States. However, she has not revealed the date and the month when she was born. 

Maria Elena Salinas Height

Elena stands at a height of 5 feet 6 inches tall. 

Maria Elena Salinas Family

Salinas’s parents immigrated from Mexico to the United States in the 1940s. She lived in Mexico for 7 years as a child and was raised in Los Angeles. She has four siblings known as Carmen Salinas, Esther Salinas Lozano, Gustavo Salinas Lozano, and Josefina Salinas Lozano. 

Maria Elena Salinas Husband

Salinas is a divorced woman. She was married to Eliott Rodriguez, a Cuban-American television journalist. She has two daughters; Julia Alexandra and Gabriela Maria. Since 1991, Salinas has lived in Miami with her 2 daughters.

Maria Elena Salinas Salary

Being one of the top reporters for CBS, Salinas earns an annual salary ranging between $ 20,000 – $ 100,000.

Maria Elena Salinas Net Worth

Salinas has an estimated net worth of between $100,000 – $1 Million which she has earned through her successful career as a journalist.

Maria Elena Salinas Book

In the year 2006, she wrote a book known as I Am My Father’s Daughter: Living a Life Without Secrets. The book covers her discovery that her father had once been a Catholic priest.

Maria Elena Salinas Carmen Salinas

Elena is the sister to Carmen Salinas and her other siblings include; Esther Salinas Lozano, Gustavo Salinas Lozano, and Josefina Salinas Lozano