Live from Capitol Hill
One year after the January 6 insurrection, Telemundo’s Cristina Londoño talks about broadcasting live that day, covering politics and telling the truth in Washington, D.C.
Telemundo’s Cristina Londoño outside the Capitol on January 6 between supporters of President Trump and Washington police. Photo: Telemundo.
Cristina Londoño arrived on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, expecting to report on a bureaucratic process: Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election results. But nothing about the 2020 election, or its aftermath, followed a normal script. President Donald J. Trump had questioned the validity of the results and thousands of his supporters had gathered in the capital that day to protest against them.
Before Congress could certify the election, rioters breached the entrance to the Capitol. Londoño (’91), a veteran reporter for Telemundo, one of the largest Spanish-speaking networks in the US, was working in a neighboring building and began receiving reports of the escalating violence. She spent much of the day reporting live from a basement filled with evacuated members of Congress.
Londoño, a native of Colombia, arrived in Washington, D.C., in 2019 after more than two decades as a general assignment reporter in Florida and California. The six-time Emmy winner was most recently honored in 2021 for Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in Spanish, for her coverage of June 1, when law enforcement and protesters clashed outside of the White House and former President Trump posed with a Bible outside of a nearby church. She spoke with COMtalk about covering January 6 and what it’s like to report from Washington, D.C. in today’s divisive political climate.
Q&A
What were your expectations when you went to work on Capitol Hill on January 6?
Congress was going to certify the election. So I got up that morning, met my photographer and we walked to our position in the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building on the House side of the Capitol where we were going to go live. We knew there was going to be a big protest outside, but I wasn’t covering that.
When did that plan change?
I had my earpiece on and the producers would go from me to the people outside who were saying, “It’s getting rowdy.” Then, all of a sudden, a security guard came in and screamed at us: “Everybody get out! Evacuate!” My instinct was to say, “We’re going live.” But he screamed again and he was really serious. Everybody inside the rotunda left. My photographer and I picked up our batteries, our bags and carried our equipment—most importantly our LiveU [a mobile unit that transmits video to the control room]—down to the basement. Sometimes the signal doesn’t work in the basement, but it was working that day. We were the only ones who were able to go live there. Then things started unfolding in the most surreal way. Capitol police officers were coming in hurt, crying because they had been tear gassed. We watched the SWAT teams running around the Capitol.
What was going on in that basement?
The Cannon House Office Building is not the actual Capitol, but it is connected through the basement and it’s where they were evacuating the congressmen and congresswomen. I saw some of our Hispanic members of Congress being evacuated. Lou Correa (D-CA) actually said a bad word on air because he was so angry. I said, “What’s going to happen?” And he said, “We need to get over this and we need to go back in session.” Veronica Escobar (D-TX) was almost in tears. Later, I saw pictures of her on the floor in the Capitol where people were trying to force their way in. We had Latino janitors coming in and crying, telling us that their families were worried that they were going to die.
How have things changed for you since January 6?
You always want to tell both sides of the story. But the difference, in situations like that, is that there is a truth that escapes opinion—and I cannot call that a protest. That was a riot and it was an insurrection. They were screaming “Hang Mike Pence.” I also covered June 1, when peaceful protests in front of the White House led to us getting tear gassed and hit with rubber bullets. Those were two instances where I had to tell the truth and call it like it is. It’s cost me dearly because the country is so divided. I was insulted and mistreated on social media and they have called me fake news and a liar and an enemy of the state. As journalists, there has come a point of reckoning where you have to say, “No! This is what happened.”
What has it been like to see people continue to debate what happened on January 6?
Former President Trump’s team has been subpoenaed by the investigative committee and we have seen sentences coming down against the people that took part in the insurrection. I have spoken to Republicans who say that they believe that these people need to be sentenced and need to pay for what they did. But then, on the other hand, they will tell you that they think this committee is getting political revenge. I don’t have a problem seeing it from both sides as long as they don’t tell me it was a peaceful protest. I can’t take that. I saw our democracy on its knees and I am not going to sugarcoat it.
Has the atmosphere improved for journalists since January 2021?
Fourteen days later, I covered the inauguration. I never thought I would see the Capitol the way I saw it on the 6th. And I was glad that I could see it again, in all its glory, like I saw it on the 20th. And we’re getting back into the Capitol now. The barricades are down. But the division that you see in this country, we have never experienced it before. I’ve been living here since I was 17 and, when I went to BU, Democrats and Republicans could have a party together and laugh it out. I don’t know how good that party would be today.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
