Oscar J. Corral

Abstract is: Oscar Jose Corral (born 16 August 1974) is a Cuban-American journalist and filmmaker. In 2012, Corral directed and produced a documentary film, Tom Wolfe Gets Back to Blood, which enjoyed a national run on PBS and was screened in more than 40 independent theaters around the country. It is the only film ever made about Tom Wolfe, an iconic author and satirist whose stature in American letters has loomed large for the last half century. The film is about how Wolfe researched his Miami-set novel, Back to Blood, in South Florida. Through his own media production company, Explica Media Solutions, Corral has partnered with, and worked for, many news organizations, including the Miami Herald, which premiered an 18-part video series about invasive Burmese pythons in 2014. That series, later rebranded Exotic Invaders: Pythons in the Everglades, premiered on PBS nationally in 2015 and is available on Netflix. The film won an Emmy award for environmental films. Corral also completed a documentary film about undocumented child immigrants, The Crossfire Kids, in 2014. That film aired on South Florida PBS affiliate WPBT2 and received an Emmy nomination. Corral is a former Miami Herald journalist who triggered a firestorm among Cuban exiles in Miami with his reporting about government funding for Radio and TV Marti and other U.S. government programs to promote democracy in Cuba. His controversial stories have been the subject of several studies and analyses, most recently by Columbia University, which used them as a basis for an ethical case study. Corral also played major roles in the coverage of other big stories in Miami, including the fall of Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele, the case of Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles, and multiple state and national political campaigns. His short-lived blog, Miami's Cuban Connection, enjoyed a burst of popularity in 2006 before fading into internet limbo, where it lives on in the Miami Herald's archives. It has not been updated for several years.