Eliana Moreno Reported for Telemundo, NBC in L.A.
Black Juror, Name Now Public, Cites Harassment
Are People of Color Allies of Press Freedom? Depends.
ESPN Gives NAACP Rebuttal Time on Sports Bill
Homepage photo: Eliana Moreno and George Marciniw via Facebook
Eliana Moreno and George Marciniw (Credit: George Marciniw via Facebook)
Eliana Moreno Reported for Telemundo, NBC in L.A.
Among the dead were Eliana Moreno, “a journalist familiar to viewers of the station and its Spanish-language sister station, Telemundo 52, and pilot George Marciniw. The pair began flying together in 2023,” Adela Suliman reported Wednesday for NBC News.
“A pedestrian on the ground was also confirmed to have died at the scene, officials said. Authorities have yet to identify the individual.”
Suliman wrote, “Moreno, in her late 30s, was born in Orange County, south of L.A.
“She graduated from Chapman University in the area with a degree in broadcast journalism and political science in 2010, NBC Los Angeles reported.
“Moreno joined Angel City Air’s helicopter team the same year and has reported for multiple Southern California news outlets.
A TV helicopter crashed and exploded in flames between commercial buildings near the site of a fatal SUV-Metro bus collision in Chatsworth, a suburban neighborhood in Los Angeles, on Tuesday (Credit: Key News Network)
“A seasoned aerial journalist who also reported in Spanish, Moreno was known on her official Instagram account as, ‘Eli in the heli,’ due to her work. There, she shared pictures of her chickens and pet dogs and a video of her engagement to fiancée Robert Barrientos, in 2025. He did not immediately respond to NBC News’s request for comment. The pair ran a half-marathon together in May, after which she wrote: ‘I surpassed everything I thought I could ever do so let’s see what I do next!’
“Moreno also frequently shared multiple images of herself in the news chopper, covering stories on the go, with one caption reading, ‘I have the best job in the world.’
“The crash occurred just before 7p.m. local time on Tuesday in the Chatsworth area of the San Fernando Valley, as the news chopper was covering a separate road traffic accident.”
“ ‘We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it …’ Williams said. The station quickly turned to regular programming to give the news team a chance to absorb what happened. . . .
“Zareh Sevanesian, who witnessed the crash, said the helicopter was swaying before it started losing altitude.
“ ‘It was just getting lower and lower and lower and lower,’ he said on NBC’s ‘TODAY’ show.
“The sudden explosion and fireball with thick, acrid smoke sent people nearby running away and screaming as shrapnel and other wreckage flew through the area, witnesses said.
“Moreno and Marciniw were covering the collision between an SUV and Metro bus that left three people dead near the site of the helicopter crash. . . .”
Black Juror, Name Now Public, Cites Harassment
The Black juror who held out in the Lindsay Clancy child-strangulation case says he is being targeted because he is a Republican with conservative views, including by fellow jurors; that he has been harassed and doxxed since the news media publicized his name, and that his “guilty” vote was based strictly on trial evidence rather than personal bias or legal concealment.
Michael P. Desronville spoke with Ray Marcel of Fugitive TV, who says he was “once a fugitive on the run from the law myself,” and said of Desronville, “He is not going to go on camera now, but he will be going on camera in the future, but he’s not going to do it just yet. All right. You have to understand this man is being attacked. Why we were on the phone, literally whilewe were on the phone.” The video was posted Tuesday night.
Last Friday, NBC 10 Boston, the commercial name for WBTS-CD in nearby Nashua, N.H., reported allegations of past domestic abuse, including an incident in which Desronville, then not publicly named, assaulted his teen-age nephew, who “took out a restraining order after he said the juror pushed him to the ground and repeatedly punched him in the face.”
“I don’t see how they would’ve allowed him to be a member of this jury,” NBC10 Boston’s chief legal analyst Michael Coyne said.
The station also reported, “The standard juror questionnaire in Massachusetts clearly asks if someone has been arrested, charged with a crime or been served with a court order. All of those boxes should have been checked by this juror.
“I don’t see how, if those questions had been answered correctly, one side or the other would’ve taken the chance with allowing him to be seated,” Coyne said.
Marcel said Desronville told him “that his nephew is actually 6-foot-2 and that Michael’s only 5-foot-7.
“Now that doesn’t give you the right to hit anybody, you know, but he said the truth will come out. . .
“He told me he didn’t lie. He told me he checked the box that he was supposed to check. Have you ever been arrested? And he says he knows he checked it because he had to describe what happened after he checked that. So he checked it and described what happened. He said he got on the stand and I guess the prosecutor asked him questions. The prosecutor questioned him. And then guess what? After that he was selected. So. In his words, he said, no, he didn’t lie on a questionnaire.
“He was questioned by the prosecution and was selected.” Of the other allegations, Marcel said, ” I don’t think NBC Boston gave the full story.”
Marcel also took shots at the news media, which published Desronville’s name despite Judge William Sullivan’s impoundment of the jury list, citing concerns about juror privacy.
“There was no reason to do any of this.
“Now in the future, people are going to be scared to even serve on a jury. And if they do, they’re going to be scared to maybe give into pressure because they don’t want to be that one person that votes either guilty or not guilty.
“Even if Michael was voting that she was innocent and everybody else in there was voting guilty, it still doesn’t make it right. And you know what? I would still stand with him.cause that is wrong. What people have done to his name. This man cannot live in peace right now. People are knocking on his door, going around his house, not just his house, his family members house.
“His brother is even said that everybody’s going by the homes. They can’t leave. They feel unsafe. Is this what the American system was brought up on? Is this how we’re supposed to treat our jurors? No matter if you agree with them or you disagree with them, you guys tell me I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a judge. I’ve been in the courtroom, especially if you’ve been following my videos, you know, but I do know I have common sense and common sense seems to be lacking nowadays.”
Credit: Pew Research Center
Are People of Color Allies of Press Freedom? Depends
“Most Americans see freedom of the press – protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – as important to society,” the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday. “But their support for press freedom is far from absolute, according to a new Pew Research Center study from the Pew-Knight Initiative.”
Is that also true of people of color? It depends, Pew researchers told Journal-isms.
Here is their response:
The topic of institutional trust and how it relates to race and ethnicity is a very complex story. So, while some specific measures do indicate lower levels of trust in institutions among racial minorities, other measures tell a different story. Therefore, we would heavily caution against suggesting that racial and ethnic minorities have a general distrust in institutions just based on some of these recent findings.
We do find differences by race and ethnicity in how important press freedom is. Specifically:
- White Americans (76%) are slightly more likely than Black (67%) and Hispanic (67%) Americans to say freedom of the press is extremely/very important to the well-being of society, though majorities of all racial/ethnic groups take this position. This gap holds up even after accounting for age, education, income, political party, ideology and gender. (The gap between white Americans and Asian Americans is not significant).
- White Americans (48%) are also slightly more likely than Black (41%), Hispanic (40%) and Asian (41%) Americans to say that it is more important for the press to be free to report the news, even if some reporting is inaccurate. This gap also holds up after accounting for those same factors (age, education, income, party, ideology, gender).
And separately, there certainly are some cases in which racial minorities have expressed distrust in media institutions in specific ways.
For example, in our report on Black American’s experiences with the news, we found relatively low optimism among Black Americans that the media will cover Black people fairly in their lifetime, among other findings that illustrate that distrust.
On the other hand, in some cases, Black Americans specifically express a bit more trust in media institutions than white Americans:
- For example, when asked “how much confidence do you have in journalists to act in the best interests of the public?”, Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to say they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence (56% of Black Americans say this vs. 40% of white Americans; this data is from this study.)
- And Black Americans are slightly more likely than white Americans to say that they trust the information that comes from national news media a lot or some – (63% of Black Americans say this, vs. 55% of white Americans; link to the related report here).
- In both of the above cases, the differences are largely due to the party differences between Black and white Americans. Specifically, Black Americans are more likely to be Democrats than are white adults. And in both cases, Hispanic respondents show little difference from white Americans.
In summary, there is not a consistent story of pessimism when it comes to views of the media among people of color in general.
- Journal-isms: Press Freedom Is for Black-Run Countries, Too (Sept. 6, 2024)
- Kiana Cox, Pew Research Center: Black Americans’ mistrust of the U.S. news media (June 15, 2024)
(Credit: ESPN)
“NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson sharply criticized the Protect College Sports Act during an appearance on ESPN’s ‘SportsCenter’ on Tuesday evening, rejecting the premise that college sports needs congressional intervention and accusing conferences of seeking greater control over athletes at a time players are gaining more financial power,” Ira Gorawara wrote Tuesday for the Athletic.
“ ‘There’s no instability in the game,’ Johnson said. ‘It’s just greed by the conferences.’
“Johnson’s appearance came three days after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a co-author of the PCSA, received nearly 10 minutes on ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’ ahead of Ohio State-Texas in Austin to advocate for the legislation. Cruz appeared alone with host Rece Davis, without an opponent of the legislation participating in the discussion. The NAACP subsequently posted on X asking ESPN to bring Johnson onto this week’s ‘College GameDay’ in Oxford, Miss., to present its opposition. ESPN instead booked him for Tuesday’s 6 p.m. ET edition of ‘SportsCenter.'”
The NAACP had called the bill “dangerous to Black Athletes and the Black community.”
“Minutes after Johnson’s appearance, the bill cleared its first major hurdle on the Senate floor. Senators voted 74-24 to invoke cloture and begin consideration of the legislation, a significant step toward a final Senate vote, which could come next week if the process continues to advance. . . .”
- Derrick Johnson, the Crisis, NAACP: NAACP Opposes the so-called “Protect College Sports Act (Aug. 4)
- Brent Schrotenboer, USA Today: Deion Sanders at odds with athlete advocates, Black leaders on Protect College Sports Act
Boston Globe Identifies Black Juror in Clancy Case
Sept. 15, 2026
Judge Had Impounded the Juror List, Citing Privacy
Mia Navarro, Social-Justice Journalist, Dies at 69
Judge Halts DHS Curb on Visas for Foreign Journalists
Dunia Elvir, NAHJ Leader, ‘Moving On’ From Day Job
ICE Arrests Nicaraguan Journalist Living in Exile
“The NBC10 Investigators have uncovered new details about the one holdout juror from the Lindsay Clancy trial: Documents and interviews with family members reveal a history of domestic violence allegations,” the station said Friday. (Credit: YouTube)
Judge Had Impounded the Juror List, Citing Privacy
The Boston Globe Tuesday identified the Black holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy child-strangling case, saying he “has his own history with the justice system, including a past charge for domestic violence — raising deeper questions about the jury selection process in the high-profile case.”
The judge had indefinitely impounded the jury list, citing concerns about juror privacy, Nicole Moeder reported Monday for WJAR in Cranston, R.I. “The order comes after the alleged holdout juror was identified on social media,” she wrote.
Nevertheless, the juror’s photo is now circulating on social media.
The Globe’s Shelley Murphy, Chris Serres and Shannon Larson reported, “The juror is Michael P. Desronvil, 48, of Bridgewater. His personal legal issues were first reported by NBC10, though he was not identified by name.
“But the Globe confirmed his identity through photos published online, court records, and an interview with one of his fellow jurors. He had an active civil restraining order against him for allegedly assaulting his nephew and was facing eviction proceedings even as he was weighing evidence against Clancy, who admitted strangling her three children in January 2023 but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
“Repeated efforts by the Globe to reach Desronvil were unsuccessful.
“The disclosures about Desronvil’s legal troubles raise questions about the jury screening before Clancy’s trial and could factor into the selection process if another jury is empaneled; the first trial ended in a deadlock after seven days of deliberations, with Desronvil being the only holdout against an acquittal based on insanity. A mistrial was declared Sept. 4 after six weeks of trial.
“Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz declined to comment Monday on the jury selection process, according to a spokesperson.”
NBC10 Boston, the commercial name for WBTS-CD in Nashua, N.H., reported some of the juror’s past troubles Friday, but did not use his name, saying, “We are not identifying him at this time because he has chosen not to speak publicly and the jury list is currently impounded.”
The judge indefinitely impounded the jury list, citing concerns about juror privacy, Nicole Moeder reported Monday for WJAR. “The order comes after the alleged holdout juror was identified on social media,” she wrote.
Writing about the impoundment of the jury list, Moeder reported, “Former prosecutor Margaret McLean (pictured) said the online exposure raises serious concerns for jurors and the court system.
“This person’s personal life has completely been exposed on the internet, including his picture, and he is supposed to remain anonymous,” McLean said.
“She said the situation could discourage people from serving on future juries.
“ ‘Are we going to not want to serve on a jury because we’re afraid that our past could come out for everybody to see publicly?’ McLean said.
“It is unclear whether news organizations or social media users could face legal consequences for identifying the juror. McLean said she is not aware of a specific law that would make the media liable, but she suggested lawmakers may need to address the issue as high-profile trials draw intense public scrutiny.”
Journal-isms has reached out to the Globe for comment.
Mia Navarro, Social-Justice Journalist, Dies at 69
— Mireya Navarro (@Mireyawrites) December 15, 2025
Mireya Navarro narrates in Spanish after explaining, “ICE has long used state-of-the-art surveillance technology to target immigrants, but it is now also focusing on anti-ICE protesters and anyone allegedly funding them.”
If no image is visible, please consider using a different browser.
N.Y. Times Vet Fought 9-Year Battle With Cancer
Mireya Navarro, whose passion for social justice guided 28 years of reporting for the New York Times and, later, launching a Spanish-language edition of the newsletter of the Brennan Center for Justice, has died after a nine-year battle with breast cancer, her husband, Jim Sterngold, disclosed Monday. The Intelius website lists her age as 69.
Navarro’s friend Maite Junco, vice-chancellor at the City University of New York, described Navarro, affectionately called “Mia,” as “a fun-loving world traveler, fantastic cook and dancer, who journeyed in this world with impeccable taste and elegance.”
Also on Facebook, New York TImes colleague David Gonzalez wrote, “Loved that we could speak Spanish and be Boricua, in work and spirit, especially at the NYT, where we had arrived mere years after a recruiting AME said he couldn’t find any Latin journalists who wrote English.” Navarro was a native of Puerto Rico. (Photo: Mireya Navarro on her birthday in 2025)
Sterngold passed along this message on that platform:
“I write to share the heartbreaking news that my wife, Mia Navarro, passed away yesterday after a 9-year battle with breast cancer. Mia was, through and through, a journalist and had a distinguished 28-year career at The New York Times.
“She was very devoted to the paper, loved her years there, loved her close friends and colleagues and loved that she could contribute to the journalism on many important topics, from AIDS and the environment to 9/11 and public housing in New York. She wrote an article in the Times series, ‘How Race Is Lived in America,’ which won a Pulitzer in 2001. She worked in Metro, was the Miami Bureau Chief for 5 years and worked in the Los Angeles bureau of the Times after we married so she could join me there.
“Mia had a wonderful post-Times career, too. She joined the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU Law School as a senior media person then conceived, designed, built and then ran, as Editor in Chief, Brennan’s Spanish-language website, Brennan en Español. Her innovation significantly expanded Brennan’s reach into a community heavily impacted by the social justice issues Brennan illuminates and fights for.
“And a brief comment for those of you – perhaps all – surprised to learn that Mia was fighting cancer for so many years. Mia made a decision after she was diagnosed that she desperately wanted to live the life she wanted to live, on her terms, without having to constantly answer for her disease with friends. She knew this was uncommon and would perhaps be unpopular – and she respected others who chose differently — but she reflected deeply and felt this was the path to the best life she could enjoy under the circumstances. She lived on her terms.
“There will not be a funeral, but we are arranging a Memorial service. I’ll share details once we have them.”
Among Navarro’s affiliations were the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, where she became a lifetime member, and the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, of which she was a 1979 reporting alumna.
Credit: The NewsGuild-CWA
Judge Halts DHS Curb on Visas for Foreign Journalists
A federal judge Monday blocked a Trump administration rule that would have shortened the length of visas for international students, academics and foreign journalists, writing, in part, “The possibilities for abuse are rampant — in particular, the obvious likelihood that the visas of foreign journalists who are critical of the government (or, more particularly, DHS officials) will not be renewed. [PDF]
“It also raises the very likely possibility of retaliation against American journalists working abroad.”
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts found “extremely weak” the Department of Homeland’ Security’s rationale that it was combating fraud by people posing as international students.
“As to journalists, DHS makes no real effort even to defend the new rule on its merits — in fact, it did not offer any national security or fraud-and-abuse evidence, or indeed provide any reasoned explanation, at all,” Saylor said.
The NewsGuild-CWA, an affiliate of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), filed a lawsuit, joining other organizations, many of them educational institutions, challenging the DHS move. The National Writers Union and the IFJ were among those condemning this Trump administration move.
NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss called the temporarily halted policy an attack on journalists, and one “clearly designed to chill” their reporting.
“The Guild’s membership includes dozens of journalists in the United States working on I visas at several outlets including Le Monde, EFE, the CBC, Agence France-Presse and Reuters,” the Guild noted in a statement..
As Chris Cameron explained in the New York Times, “The rule would have upended a long-running system that allows millions of international students in the United States to stay until they complete their studies.
“The new rule would instead have capped the stay of a student, researcher, professor or other academic at four years — a change that would significantly affect most Ph.D. students. The rule would also have restricted foreign students from getting a second degree of the same level, changing their field of studies or transferring to a different university.
“Foreign journalists would also have been limited to visas of just 240 days. Students and journalists could apply for extensions, but approval is at the discretion of officials at the Department of Homeland Security, and a declined extension is unappealable.”
Saylor put implementation of the new DHS rules on hold for now without ruling on the merits of the case and scheduled another hearing for Oct. 2.
Dunia Elvir, NAHJ Leader, ‘Moving On’ From Day Job
Dunia Elvir, a 25-year journalist at Telemundo 52 in Los Angeles and president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, is “moving on from Telemundo 52 as of today to spend more time on projects outside of our newsroom,” Miguel Gaytan, the station’s vice president of news, announced Monday.
Elvir disclosed plans to run for re-election during the NAHJ convention in July, and she told Journal-isms Tuesday night that she still plans to do so.
“Yes! I am leaving KVEA (Telemundo 52) however, I am not leaving Telemundo 100%,” she messaged.
“I will continue working in journalism. The difference is that I am not going to be anchoring the 6 & 11PM KVEA shows anymore.
“I will go back to the format I used to do when I was with Telemundo Network. My work is shifting from anchoring local news to working community stories and more.
“In a few days, I will share on social media what I have planned as part of my new chapter.
“And the best part is that this transition doesn’t affect my eligibility to continue serving as NAHJ president. I will also run for another term.”
Earlier Tuesday, Elvir wrote on LinkedIn:
“I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about this announcement and my career transition.
“People are asking if I’m okay…
¡Claro! Absolutely! 🙌🏽
“Me siento ¡macanuda!
“Como decimos los catrachos:
“actually, better than okay! 😉
“And to everyone who has reached out with emails, texts, and calls: thank you. I feel loved, and it truly means more than you know. ❤️
“This is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning of a new chapter.
“Stay tuned for more details… ✨”
Asked additional questions, Gaytan directed Journal-isms to Elvir’s statement.
Dunia Elvir during a news conference with student journalists at the NAHJ convention in New Orleans on July 22. (Credit: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/Latino Reporter)
Elvir was elected in 2024 to a two-year term. She was unopposed and had been president of NAHJ’s Los Angeles chapter. In July, NAHJ announced it had created a scholarship in her name that would award $5,000 annually for five years.
Elvir presided over a convention this summer that made news with an interview with Cecilia Vega, fired “60 Minutes” correspondent, but faced financial headwinds.
“The budget cuts forcing contractions and layoffs in the journalism industry are leaving a mark on the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ annual conference as sponsors and exhibitors who once spent big are now absent from the event,” Ivan Saravia and Yarithza Liceaga López wrote for the student convention newspaper, the Latino Reporter.
Similar issues confronted the National Association of Black Journalists, which additionally cited the Trump administration’s relentless efforts against diversity, equity and inclusion.
Next year’s NAHJ convention will face the added challenge of taking place at the same time as that of NABJ, which moved its gathering up from its original time to attract more students and educators who might otherwise be heading to a new school term. NABJ President Errin Haines said she did not realize NAHJ’s convention would be taking place then.
However, NABJ rejected NAHJ’s request to select dates that did not conflict, with some members privately recalling with distaste NAHJ’s 2023 decision to pull out of the joint convention both were to have the next year in Chicago.
Journal-isms reported last year that NAHJ was the nation’s fourth-largest associaton of journalists, behind Investigative Reporters & Editors, NABJ and the Society of Professional Journalists.
“The detention of Luis Galeano demands a response that takes into account his status as a persecuted and exiled journalist,” said Pierre Manigault, president of the Inter-American Press Association. “The United States must guarantee him a fair and transparent process and, above all, ensure that he is not deported.” (Credit: Voice of America)
ICE Arrests Nicaraguan Journalist Living in Exile
“U.S. immigration authorities arrested a Nicaraguan journalist on Monday who is critical of the government of Daniel Ortega and has been living in exile in the United States for several years, according to the opposition figure’s family,” Agence France-Presse reported Tuesday.
“Luis Galeano went into exile in the United States in 2018 and was awaiting a decision on his asylum application when agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detained him.”
The detention “is provoking an unusual backlash from South Florida Republicans, press-freedom organizations and members of Miami’s Nicaraguan community, who warn that deportation could place his life in danger,” Alicia Civita reported for the Montgomery, Ala.-based Latin Times.
“Galeano, the 48-year-old director of the Miami-based news and opinion program Café con Voz, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Monday morning while working as an Uber driver in Orlando, according to his wife, Deykell Santamaría.
“He managed to make a brief telephone call from a police station.
” ‘ICE detained me,’ Galeano told his wife during the approximately 15-second conversation, according to the Nicaraguan investigative outlet Divergentes. He asked her to contact his attorney and inform other journalists before the call ended.
“Santamaría later said Galeano would be transferred to the former Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson, Florida, now used as an immigration detention center and called the ‘Deportation Depot’ by state officials. He is expected to remain in custody ahead of an immigration hearing scheduled for Oct. 2.
“ICE had not publicly explained what triggered Galeano’s arrest, and the precise status of his immigration proceedings remained unclear Monday afternoon. Nicaraguan media organizations reported that he has an active asylum application pending in the United States. . . .”
- Committee to Protect Journalists: CPJ calls on ICE to release exiled Nicaraguan journalist Luis Galeano
- Inter-American Press Association: The IAPA calls for protection of Nicaraguan journalist Luis Galeano detained by ICE
- Ivan Olivares, Confidential, Nicaragua: ICE detains exiled Nicaraguan journalist Luis Galeano in Florida
