Outstanding Leadership Award

Maria Mercader, a longtime and beloved member of our community, is posthumously awarded the ELP Outstanding Leadership Award for her decades-long commitment to mentorship and diversity in journalism.

Maria, 54, a cancer survivor, died earlier this year of complications from COVID-19.

Maria had been with CBS News for more than 30 years and was director of talent strategy for the past four years. She had also worked as a producer on the CBS News foreign desk. Maria was proud to have grown her career at CBS, where she started as a page. There she worked at Newspath, the national desk and CBS Sunday Morning. In 2004, she won an Emmy with David Pogue and Doug Smith for their CBS Sunday Morning piece on computer spam. Our hearts go out to her CBS family.

Maria was a dear mentor and friend to many AAJA members. She was a proud 2004 graduate of AAJA’s Executive Leadership Program in Chicago.