Chapter Leadership

Brandon Benavides
President
WRC-TV/ NBC 4
Brandon is a content producer at NBC 4/WRC-TV, the No. 1 station in Washington, D.C. The Emmy-Award-winning producer joined News4 in March 2010. He returned to the nation’s capital where he completed his Master of Arts in Journalism and Public Affairs at American University. Brandon worked at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN and KETK-TV in Tyler, TX.

Brandon was reelected to a third, one-year term as Chapter President for NAHJ DC in 2012. He joined NAHJ as a student member in 2004. He co-chaired the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus for more than two years before being elected to the Board of Directors as the Region 6 Representative. Brandon was elected General-At-Large Officer at the UNITY convention in 2008. He completed his two-year term on the national board in July 2010.

Jackie Diaz
Vice President
WUSA-TV web producer

Jackie Diaz is a multimedia journalist fluent in both English and Spanish. She currently works at WUSA-TV/ CBS-9 as a web producer. Prior to moving to D.C., she worked as a reporter for KGBT-TV in Harlingen, Texas and a bilingual video journalist at KAZR-TV in Reno, Nevada.

Jackie graduated from Florida International University with a bachelors in communication. She joined NAHJ as a student member in 2006. If you have any questions or comments regarding the D.C. local chapter you can email Jackie at: jackiebdiaz@gmail.com. Follow on twitter at: @jackiebdiaz.

Rosalba Ruiz
Treasurer-Secretary
Producer, The Associated Press

Rosalba Ruíz is a bilingual multimedia journalist with over 10 years of experience in the media industry.

Some of her favorite assignments: reporting on the immigration reform
movement of 2006 for Excélsior del Condado de Orange; producing a
multimedia project on the popularity of banda and norteño music in
Orange County, California for The OC Register; collaborating on the
coverage of the Chile miners saga with Reuters Latin America; and
following this year’s presidential election developments as a CNN en
Español producer.

Rosalba has also taught online courses on multimedia storytelling for
the International Center for Journalists, adapted the Pulitzer
finalist “Toxic Treats” series to Spanish for The Orange County
Register and helped produce the independent movie “Alondra Smiles.”

Rosalba is currently an online video producer for AP and a writer for voxxi.com..

Andres Gonzalez
Generical at Large
Freelance Journalist

Andres is a multimedia, bilingual freelance journalist. He has worked with the Associated Press in Washington, D.C. first as a news intern and then as a freelance video producer.
One of his favorite assignments was producing a multimedia, long-format report for The Associated Press on minority, low-income Washington, D.C. residents being priced out due to urban redevelopment.
Before the AP, Andres interned at USA TODAY, WTTG FOX 5 D.C., Public Broadcasting Service, Capital News Service and Corridor Inc. magazine.
Andres graduated from the University of Maryland with a bachelor’s degree in political sciences and broadcast journalism. As a student, Andres was the editor-in-chief of La Voz Latina–U-Md.’s only Latino newspaper–and worked at U-Md.’s television station.
Andres was born in Colombia, grew up in Puerto Rico and lived in England. In his free time, he enjoys watching documentaries, trying ethnic cuisines, baking and learning languages (currently learning French).

Melissa Macaya
General at Large
CNN en Espanol

Born and raised Venezuela Melissa is passionate about reporting and producing news about political and international issues especially focused on Hispanic and Latin American topics. She has gained journalism experience on the local, national and international level producing news content in both English and Spanish. During her undergraduate career, she worked in the media departments of the Organization of American States and the Washington Office on Latin America while also collaborating with various news outlets that included Globovision and Hispanic Link News Service. She then was chosen as a Fellow at NBC News as part of the NAHJ/NBC Fellowship where she served as field producer for Nightly News. In the Fall semester of her senior year, she worked with Univision in Texas helping produce news packages about Hispanics in the state and around the country. Melissa loves to travel and has lived in 5 countries: Venezuela, Spain, Mexico, Argentina and the United States. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at Georgetown University and working at CNN’s DC bureau with its CNN en Espanol team and Assignment Desk.