Who is Gio Benitez? ‘GMA’ weekend anchor covered El Chapo’s underground escape as an investigative reporter
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: If you think weekdays anchors of ‘Good Morning America’ get all the praise and love for their work, you haven’t met Gio Benitez until now. The 37-year-old journalist was recently promoted to the position of co-anchor of ‘GMA’s’ Saturday and Sunday editions in May, alongside Whit Johnson, Janai Norman and meteorologist Somara Theodore. However, before joining 'GMA's weekend broadcast, Benitez had a successful career as a news correspondent for ABC News.
Benitez had been ABC News’ transportation correspondent since 2020 and joined the division in 2013. Before joining ABC News in 2013, he was a reporter for WFOR-TV in Miami. On joining 'GMA's weekend edition, Benitez told Variety, “One thing I love to do is I love to examine the human condition, and there are so many ways to do that and so many different stories. What I’m excited about is I’ll be able to stretch into that territory.”
Who is Gio Benitez?
Benitez is an award-winning reporter who has covered aviation, space, railroads, and the auto industry across all ABC News programs and platforms, including ’20/20', ‘Good Morning America', ‘Nightline', ‘World News Tonight with David Muir', ABC News Live and ABC News Radio. He gained recognition for his investigative stories, especially the coverage of the Pulse nightclub shooting, El Chapo’s underground escape from a Mexican prison and the Boston Marathon bombing.
Benitez graduated from the Florida International University’s School of International and Public Affairs with a degree in sociology and anthropology. He credits his ability to dive down to the minutest details of a story as his biggest strength. He also has a small record to his name as in 2009, he became the first reporter ever to shoot a TV story entirely with an iPhone. For his outstanding journalistic and explosive investigative stories, he has received three national Emmy Awards.
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The famed El Chapo prison break coverage
In 2015, the case of Mexican drug lord and kingpin El Chapo breaking out of a maximum security prison in Mexico was all anyone could talk of. Benitez saw a great story to cover and dived into the escape tunnel that Chapo used to escape. He was still in his early days as a journalist but his daring story to document Chapo’s escape resonated with viewers, turning him into a journalistic sensation. This story, along with coverage of the Boston Marathon Bombing became the two founding stones in his journalistic career. Since then, Benitez has only risen and is now a weekend anchor at ‘GMA.’
