2 minutes with: Juanita Hurtado Huérfano

Ellie Chase — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 20:02:25 +0000

2 minutes with: Juanita Hurtado Huérfano Ellie Chase Thu, 10/08/2026 - 14:02

Photo by Kimberly Coffin

Hannah Stewart

Juanita Hurtado Huérfano (Jour’25) knew she wanted to be a journalist, but never dreamed of working in radio until a chance encounter at a career fair led her to volunteer at KGNU. She soon became news director at ��ñ��’s Radio 1190, winning a Broadcast Education Association award for best audio comedy/drama. After graduating, Huérfano moved to Tampa, Florida, where she works at WMNF.

Photo by Kimberly Coffin

Responses edited for length and clarity.

Where did your passion for radio come from?
I actually wanted to be a print journalist. But after volunteering with KGNU, I fell in love. There’s something very beautiful and powerful about letting people tell their own story with their own voices—their excitement, sadness, anger.

A powerful story you worked on was with News21—tell me about that.
I joined News21 with Celia Frazier (Jour’25) and we looked at bilingual voting resources. We discovered there are about 26 million voters in the United States who don’t speak English. For our story, we went to a voting registration fair for the Native American Diné people and saw how the challenges of language access translated into difficulties participating in the civic process.

What have you brought with you from that experience?
One of the things that really stuck with me was the fact-checking process. Being attentive to detail really matters. Those details enrich your story, and I’ve brought that to my newsrooms at both at Radio 1190 and WMNF.

And you just started there. How is it?
We focus on what we call “conscious radio,” so a lot of our coverage focuses on social justice, equity and elevating unheard voices. I love that community radio brings together so many different people, allowing you to develop diverse and nuanced relationships with both colleagues and sources.

What’s it like running a newsroom?
Busy! I do about three newscasts a day, on top of training volunteers in reporting stories and recruiting students to create newscasts. I’m excited to hear about what college students are learning and build community with them. We’re in an industry that has changed so much in the last 40 years and we have to keep adapting. I’m really excited to grow the station alongside them.

Hannah Stewart graduated in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news at the college.

Award-winning radio journalist Juanita Hurtado Huérfano chatted with us about what it’s like to complete the prestigious News21 fellowship and her new job as an assistant news director.

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Live and Direct

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 21:16:42 +0000

Live and Direct Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/10/2021 - 14:16

Lauren Irwin

Radio 1190’s John Boughey shares the News Underground

John Boughey

Beneath the daily commotion of the University Memorial Center, Radio 1190’s eclectic community gathers to share music, connect with a live audience and uncover overlooked stories. Poster-lined walls and bookshelves housing thousands of CDs decorate the lounge in the tucked-away campus radio station, which has created the soundtrack of CU for the past 30 years.

CMCI senior John Boughey is the station’s news director and the host of its twice-weekly program, News Underground. Appointed to the job a month before the COVID-19 pandemic, Boughey had to quickly exchange his microphone for Zoom interviews.

“I felt like, if I don’t take it, I don’t know who will,” he says. “I’m definitely looking forward to doing it without the restrictions, once we can do it safely.”

As an advertising strategy student, Boughey wasn’t initially drawn to the journalistic aspect of radio shows. But he fell in love with Radio 1190’s underground community and the live element radio brings.

This year, he hopes to use the station to energize students who weren’t able to fully experience campus during the pandemic.

“A big part of this station is just the space itself,” he says of the station formerly called KUCB. “There are a lot of different opportunities to get into journalism here. I would recommend coming down and giving radio a shot. I know it can help a lot for people who need experience interviewing or with public speaking.”

In addition to his work with Radio 1190, which includes weighing in on financial decisions as part of its Air Board, Boughey is the audio editor for ��ñ��’s latest student news outlet, The Bold. He also honed his audio skills off campus as a radio and community intern at Denver Open Media in summer 2020.

Boughey’s most memorable interview was with Deb Halland, who became the first Native American Cabinet secretary when President Joe Biden appointed her secretary of the interior in 2021.

He appreciates the flexible format of radio, which allows for the type of in-depth and long-form interviews that are his specialty. The audience gets to hear the whole story, which is not always possible through print interviews, he says, and unlike pre-recorded podcasts, radio hosts are able to speak directly to their audience in that moment.

“That live element is important because it reminds you that there is a human there,” he says.

Boughey describes his college experience like a great moment of live radio: “Blink and you’ll miss it.”

KVCU can be heard at 1190 AM, 104.7 FM and at radio1190.net.

Lauren Irwin graduated from CMDI in 2022 with a degree in Journalism.

Radio 1190 has created the soundtrack of CU for the past 30 years. CMCI senior John Boughey hit the ground running as news director during COVID-19 pandemic.

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