HACKENSACK, N.J. — Working the streets of metropolitan New York City tests the mettle of emergency personnel and the news reporters who follow them.
"I have seen it all," said Ricardo Villarini, a journalist who has covered the news ranging from riots to plane crashes to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and many events in between.
Brother Villarini, 37, is a news anchor and reporter for Spanish-speaking WNJU Channel 47, a affiliate of the international Telemundo network. He won an Emmy for his reporting in 1993, has been part of two news teams that have won that award, and has personally received eight nominations. From the studio here in New Jersey, his deep bass voice and authoritative demeanor make him well-liked by the sizeable Hispanic listening audience in one of the world's most famous markets.
He and his wife, Allison, are the parents of four children and he serves as first counselor in the Englewood 1st Branch presidency.
All three responsibilities interact with the others. "Most of the things we portray in the media are negative," he said in a recent interview. "It can really be emotionally draining, even devastating. People think that reporters get used to this because they see so many tragic things."
They don't. But "the perspective the gospel gives on the purpose of life helps me deal with a lot of this," he said.
And, he said, seeing the terrible things that can happen has made him much more protective of his children.
Two experiences illustrate this. Once he and his cameraman happened on a fire in the Bronx. A family was trapped in a blazing home. Brother Villarini and his cameraman recorded a heroic rescue of children by firemen. Another time, he and a cameraman were in a small town and a similar situation began to develop. They recorded as the firemen were unable to help, and two children were lost before the eyes of their frantic mother, who was outside. Those scenes replayed themselves in his mind long afterward.
It's a stark contrast from how he started his career — as a radio disc jockey in Puerto Rico playing soft music. When the station turned to all-news, he became a reporter. He was hired to New York from Puerto Rico and joined the Telemundo staff in 1995.
One advantage of being an anchor is that he is free on weekends to serve in the branch. A returned missionary from the Argentina Bahia Blanca Mission, he supervises missionary work, which is bringing in new members. Branch attendance averages 100 members and is growing. The branch's goal is to become a ward, and missionary work is their greatest challenge, he said.
"We work on perfecting the saints and making sure that everyone has a responsibility and is fellowshipped," he said. Missionaries say that people in the area are receptive, but investigators have a difficult time accepting and living Church standards.
"That's where we play a bigger role in fellowshipping," he said. "The members are doing pretty well."
