Veronica de la Cruz

Veronica de la Cruz is an American television news anchor and philanthropist.

Since 2021, she has been a national anchor for Scripps News. She previously worked for KPIX-TV/KBCW in the San Francisco Bay Area as a news anchor, NBC News and CNN. In memory of her late brother, she formed the Eric de la Cruz Hope For Hearts Foundation in order to provide assistance to heart transplant patients.

Early life and education Veronica de la Cruz was born in the Central Valley of California. She is half Filipino-Chinese and half French-German Jewish. Her mother Rose grew up in the Philippines in a large family and was a Registered Nurse. of Microsoft shortly before his retirement. In June 2008, she flew to Northern California to work with the Sacramento, California police vice squad as they tried to crack down on minors selling themselves through Craigslist. At that time, she asked Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, why the website continued to advertise erotic services on their site. In November, Craigslist announced they would try to fix the problem by charging for the ads. De la Cruz, whose mother is of Asian descent, has done many reports on Asian Americans. Among them were growing up Asian in America, human trafficking, and the significance of the Asian American vote in the 2008 United States presidential edition.

De la Cruz left CNN in 2008 and joined NBC/MSNBC. From 2010–2014, she was an alternating anchor on both Early Today on NBC and First Look on MSNBC, and served as a correspondent for NBC News. She also filled in as news anchor on Today.

De la Cruz has also been on the forefront of new technology. She is one of the first and only cable network news journalists to shoot segments with a Flip Mino video camera, which she edits herself on a Mac. She also regularly engages in discussion with her viewers via Facebook and microblogs on Twitter.

De La Cruz is formerly the evening anchor at CBS San Francisco, anchoring the 6 p.m. news on KPIX-TV and hosting Bay Area Nightbeat on their sister station, KBCW, at 10pm.

De La Cruz was a host for the live stream of the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on YouTube from April 15–17, 2022.

Health care reform activism

In 2009, De la Cruz started a campaign to save the life of her brother, Eric de la Cruz. Eric needed a heart transplant but was refused due to poor health insurance. Veronica tried raising money through social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook as well as web pages that were created for her family's cause. Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor joined the cause and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Eric as well as bringing much needed attention to the fight for proper health insurance. Despite these efforts, Eric died in July 2009. On April 20, 2010, De la Cruz formed the Eric de la Cruz Hope for Hearts foundation to provide assistance to heart transplant patients.

Tweeple, a magazine covering news related to Twitter, named De la Cruz as one of its picks to watch, calling her a "Trailblazer" and saying "...She is an inspiration and a catalyst for change beyond just Eric’s scenario. The national exposure is generating more and more debate on the problems in Medicaid, Medicare in the United States..." On the one year anniversary of the passage of health care reform, De la Cruz made an appearance on MSNBC to share her brother's story. She was interviewed by Contessa Brewer. De la Cruz also wrote an article about her brother and the need for health care reform for The Huffington Post.