Oscar Corral

Oscar Corral had the unfortunate fate of falling into newspaper journalism in the late 1990s, just as the internet started gnawing away at that business model. Even as his newspaper parent company, Knight Ridder, squandered away small fortunes ferrying him around the country to "cover" a presidential candidate in 2007, warning signs about the fate of newspapers abounded. He co-founded the Miami Herald's first YouTube page in 2007, filing poorly-executed and amateur video stories about the campaign of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He proudly clung to his "reporter" title until 2008, when an entrepreneurial itch, fueled by an opportune encounter with American Author Tom Wolfe, inspired him to strike out on his own into the nascent world of video journalism. In a large round of layoffs and buyouts that year, The Miami Herald offered him 4 months pay to walk away from the job which just seven years earlier had seemed like a dream job. He used the money to buy video equipment to launch a video business, a decision his wife would have a difficult time accepting when his mortgage payment was due and money was scarce. His first documentary, Tom Wolfe Gets Back To Blood, received national acclaim from media outlets like Vanity Fair, USA Today, Good Morning America, National Public Radio and many more. Today, when Corral is not lamenting the tragic implosion of his newspaper career, he is tinkering with video storytelling, hoping one day to relive "the life of kings", as H.L Mencken conned the world into believing about journalists. He will write novels until the budget for his films and documentaries catches up with the budget for his imagination. He lives in Miami with his wife, who eventually accepted his career change, his two daughters and his skittish pound mutt, Cleo.