She has a familiar name in journalistic circles, first as traffic and police reporter, later as court reporter and general contributor to a great number of local publications.
She now runs her own show at AweMainta.
Journalism has always been Maritza thing. Her parents agreed to send her to university in the US but the financial burden was too heavy on the family, and Maritza decided to return, pick a mentor, and become successful, the hard way.
She was hired by Toko Winklaar, a renowned local journalist and publisher, on a two-week try-out, a collaboration which lasted a lifetime.
Her career meandered through EXTRA, a Curacao-headquartered newspaper to the local, full color Bondia then off and on to AweMainta, Aruba Awe, a bit of free lancing, a stop at 24ora, she has maintained a high profile as a news personality for many years!
It was really stressful, she shares, that’s the nature of the business, with deadline, after deadline, and after collaborating with Toko for many years, she was ready to be on her own, “I really wanted to be my own boss,” she says, and when the opportunity presented itself, she set up NPC, a video-based news portal, and a few months later AweMainta became available when Toko retired.
She writes, she edits, she attends press conference, she interviews and asks questions. She is blessed with the ability to express herself coherently, mike in hand, and write an editorial, all in a day’s work, and she can shuttle between the spoken and the written media comfortably. Not everyone can. She also makes sense under pressure, as a story teller.
I called Maritza to congratulate her. I know that running a publication is tough. She did not get paid for months when she first took over, but things are looking up.
AweMainta has about 50.000 users a month, 10 to 15 new subscribers every day, and advertisers are showing up, prepared to invest.
Maritza wants to run an equal opportunity political platform, and create a stage for all players to express their views, nothing offensive, though, she read every word destined for publication.
