Rafael Olmeda

About

A skilled and talented reporter who has covered courts for the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale since 2011, demonstrating and sharing an insight into the legal system as it affects the residents of Broward County. Mr. Olmeda is a 28-year veteran of the news business, starting as a full-time, paid intern at the New York Daily News in 1993. He was a general assignment reporter covering the Bronx, his hometown. He covered breaking news, crime, religious communities and public housing. He moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1999, again as a general assignment reporter. In 2005, he was named assistant city editor, handling teams of reporters covering cities in southern and western Broward County, followed by the paper's innovative breaking news team. In 2008 he returned to the ranks of the paper's award-winning writing staff.In 2010 he was assigned to cover education, and the following year he began covering courts.In the meantime, he had the privilege of teaching writing to students at Florida International University and serving on the board of directors of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He served as president of NAHJ from 2006 to 2008. He also served as president of Unity: Journalists of Color in 2009.He was part of the Sun Sentinel team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the Parkland mass shooting the year before. He remains lead reporter on the criminal case against shooter Nikolas Cruz.He returned to the NAHJ board in late 2018, appointed as Vice President/Print. His term expired in 2019. He is married with two grown stepdaughters and two sons, the oldest of whom is on the autism spectrum. He is also a passionate advocate for finding treatments and a cure for ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease).