This Week on NewsNight
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This week on NewsNight, the panel discusses key issues around race as Central Florida and the country mark Juneteenth. A look at police reform and the politics of protest in Florida since the death of George Floyd. Plus, Florida’s Board of Education bans Critical Race Theory in the state's classrooms.
NewsNight airs Friday nights at 8:30 p.m. on WUCF. Join the conversation about the stories in your community.
Watch Last Week's Show
The fifth anniversary of the tragedy at Pulse
The issues facing the LGBTQ+ community five years after the tragedy at Pulse.
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NewsNight Interviews
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NewsNight en Español
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Pulse survivor Brandon Wolf reflects on tragedy 5 years later
NewsNight's Steve Mort first spoke with Brandon Wolf, a Pulse survivor, on the first anniversary of the tragedy. So how is he feeling five years later? Watch the full interview now.
Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith: Mental health services are needed for LGBTQ community
NewsNight spoke to State Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith about why he believes specific funding for LGBTQ mental health is needed.
Pulse remembrance exhibit opens at Orange County Regional History Center
It's a tricky task of memorializing the Pulse tragedy. NewsNight's Nancy Alvarez and Steve Mort visited a new exhibit at the Orange County Regional History Center which opened recently to mark the fifth anniversary. Pamela Schwartz is the executive director of the history center.
Orlando Police Chief talks about security for the LGBTQ community
This year's remembrance of those who lost their lives five years ago at Pulse comes against the backdrop of a spike in violence targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
The human rights campaign says this year is on track to be the deadliest ever for transgender and gender non-conforming people after a record year for violent fatalities in 2020.
NewsNight’s Steve Mort spoke with Orlando’s police chief Orlando Rolón this week to discuss security for the LGBTQ+ community.
Los mandatos de las máscaras en la Florida Central
Nancy Alvarez y Hazel Ortiz de Noticias Univision en Orlando discuten los mandatos de las máscaras en la Florida Central, incluso si los distritos escolares deberían continuar exigiendo cubrimientos faciales.
La vacuna en Florida
Con las nuevas variantes del Coronavirus-19 y el contagio en nuestra comunidad, Nancy Alvarez comenta con Verónica Zaragovia de WLRN y Health News Florida los esfuerzos para expandir el acceso a la vacuna en Florida.
About the Show
NewsNight Wins FABJ Award
NewsNight is a weekly, taped 30-minute segment, featuring WFTV’s Nancy Alvarez as the moderator along with a team of journalists in radio, tv, newspaper, and blogs across Central Florida. The show is a weekly round-table discussion that highlights local journalism around important community topics. It is the story behind the story. The panel will break down the big story or stories of the week and discuss what and how they’ll impact the community.
Your community.
Your concerns.
Your journalists.
NewsNight airs every Friday at 8:30 p.m. on WUCF.
NewsNight Wins Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists
WUCF’s weekly news program NewsNight took home an award during the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists virtual awards ceremony on Saturday, May 9. NewsNight won first place in the transportation and traffic category in the large television market division for its work on transportation reporting in 2019.
About Moderator Nancy Alvarez
Nancy Alvarez is a bilingual news anchor and reporter for Central Florida’s ABC affiliate, WFTV Channel 9, and host of NewsNight on WUCF, Central Florida's PBS station.
Over the last 20 years, she has played a role in covering every major story in the region including hurricanes, political events, and the tragedy at the Pulse nightclub in June of 2016.
Nancy began her career as a reporter covering the space program in Brevard County providing live coverage of countless launches and landings. She was on the runway in Florida waiting for the space shuttle Columbia when it broke apart over Texas during re-entry. She was among the first reporters on the air covering the tragedy from the Kennedy Space Center.
Nancy was also on the front line for the infamous 2004 Hurricane Season when three hurricanes hit Florida in less than two months.
More recently, Nancy was one of the first reporters on the ground in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017. Over the course of multiple trips, she provided coverage of the impacts of the storm both on the island and in Florida as storm evacuees moved to the mainland. She was also there for the political unrest that led to the resignation of the island’s governor in 2019.
She also works as a public speaker and has used her reporting experience to advocate for issues including domestic violence and the challenges facing special needs kids in schools. Nancy is a first-generation Cuban American and lives in Orlando with her husband and two children.
Follow Nancy on Twitter here.