(bright upbeat music) ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey - Good evening and welcome to "Horizonte," a show that takes a look at current issues through an Hispanic lens.

I'm your host, Catherine Anaya.

Tonight we talk to a national journalist who's had successful careers both inside and outside of journalism.

Lisa Guerrero has worked as a sports reporter, actress, and even an NFL cheerleader, and now she's written a riveting memoir which we will talk about.

But first, take a look at some of her work.

- That behavior was reprehensible and many people were upset when they saw that.

Why are your people touching me like this?

To turn the tables on the bike thieves, we're going to hide not just one but two GPS devices in this brand new e-bike.

This looks like my bike.

And sure enough, there it is.

Dirt bike riders, beware.

These guys are comin' after you.

Hi Elizabeth, I'm Lisa Guerrero with "Inside Edition."

We'd like to know if you had an opportunity to watch the documentary about you.

Can you set the record straight?

Is your voice real or is it fake?

"Inside Edition" has been investigating the controversial Tiger King since 2010 after 23 tiger cubs that he kept at this controversial roadside zoo in Oklahoma died.

You've had 23 of your tigers die.

Do you think that you're a responsible owner of tigers?

- I damn sure do.

- Are you performing black market butt injections here?

- No.

- Do you have a medical license?

- No, why are you asking me that?

- Were you just about to inject a young woman here a few minutes ago?

- No.

- Are you sure you weren't doing that?

- I'm positive.

- Because we had hidden cameras on you.

And you cannot touch me.

I tried to speak to Dr. Heaps as he left court.

Do you have any comment to the hundreds of women who claim that you have abused them who trusted you as their doctor?

We ordered fried scallops here.

We had it sent to a lab and discovered that what we were served wasn't scallops.

- Yeah, they're imitation scallops.

- Wouldn't you feel better if the menu said, "imitation scallops," so the customer actually knows what they're paying for?

- Oh, then I would have to, do you have any idea how many things are imitation?

- That's why we're doing this investigation.

This looks like a crime scene.

Do you typically steal stuff outta people's trucks?

- I'm not gonna answer that.

- As for our truck... Wow, look what happened to our truck's window.

That guy was committed to getting into the truck and stealing that purse.

We never got our purse back.

We'd just like to ask you about why you don't wanna fly commercial.

Why have you said that you won't fly commercial?

You said that it's, "like getting into a tube with a bunch of demons."

Do you really believe that human beings are demons?

- No, I do not, and don't you ever say I did.

- She is fearless.

Joining me now via Zoom to talk about her career and her new book, "Warrior: My Path to Being Brave," is Lisa Guerrero.

Thank you so much for joining us, Lisa.

It's good to see you.

- It's so good to see you, Catherine and thank you for having me.

- So it's been a while.

We haven't seen each other since, oh, probably over 20 years ago when we worked in the same shop in LA.

And I'm just so excited for you because I love your book.

It is absolutely riveting.

- Thank you so much.

And it's good to see you again.

And I think some of the stories that I'm sharing in the book are stories that will sound very familiar to you too.

A lot of women coming up in journalism in the '80s and '90s had a very different experience than a lot of women today.

And I think that the next generation of women can certainly learn from our mistakes and the challenges that we overcame.

- Well, you share a lot about this journey that you're talking about in your book, the stories behind your very layered career, from dealing with harassment as a sports reporter to chasing the bad guys for "Inside Edition".

You call this a book about bravery and you share those experience where you did have to tap into your bravery.

What does bravery mean to you and when are you most brave?

- To me, bravery is a result of empathy.

My bravery stems from the challenges and the trauma that I have overcome throughout my life.

First, as a girl who lost her daughter at eight years old, my mom was 29 when she passed away from cancer, bonding with my dad through sports, and later, getting into the world of sports casting, which was full of misogyny and obstacles that I overcame through the years.

It was through facing those obstacles that I became more brave and more courageous.

And so now when I chase bad guys on "Inside Edition" I don't do it because of audacity or some false swagger.

I chase bad guys because I feel like I want to find results and accountability for the victims and survivors that sit down and tell me their stories.

But I never would have been that brave had it not been for those challenges that I overcame personally.

So the name of the book is "Warrior," which is Guerrero, my last name in Spanish, of course, means warrior.

And my mother, before she died, she told me that I was a guerrero, that I was a warrior, that I was born to fight.

I didn't know what that meant at eight years old.

But at 58, after five decades of work, I now have discovered what that legacy means.

- Well, I'm glad you mentioned your mother because she is a very strong presence in your book.

Tell me a little bit about how she influenced your courage.

- My mother was a Chilean immigrant.

She came to the United States at 16 years old.

She was from Santiago and her father was a tailor making Salvation Army uniforms in South America.

He was sponsored by a Salvation Army officer in Chicago to come to the United States.

So he worked for $75 an hour, brought his children to the United States, including my mother, Lucy Guerrero, and eventually he started his own company.

This business was called Chicago Uniform Company and he eventually employed over 120 immigrants himself and helped sponsor their citizenship to the United States.

So it was through my grandfather's story and my mother's strength that I decided to take the name Guerrero when I became an adult.

First, I talked to my father about it, my father's American, his name's Walter Coles.

And I didn't want to hurt him.

I didn't want to have, in any way, have him feel bad that that I wanted to be a Guerrero.

And I was so scared to tell him that I wanted to change my last name legally to reflect my Latina heritage.

Instead of being insulted or upset, he cried.

He wept, he was so proud of me and he knew that my mother would've been proud with the name change and for me to reflect her name and my heritage, my Latino heritage.

- Well, it's such an honor that you pay tribute to her in that way.

And you talked about the empathy that you have that stems from some of the pain that you've endured in your life, and that empathy tends to go against what's been ingrained in us as young journalists, that we're not supposed to have these emotions when we interview people, when we tell stories.

But wouldn't you say that that makes you a better journalist in a lot of ways?

- I do, and in fact, I think this is something that's really controversial in the world of journalism, but it shouldn't be.

I believe that when somebody tells you their story, if it's a story of loss, of trauma, of being scammed out of their life savings, or the loss of their husband or child through gun violence, I believe it's okay to have empathy for that person.

I understand that there is a need to be unbiased when you report, but I don't think that means that you need to be nonemotional and that you cannot connect with victims and survivors.

So, I say that I chase "bad guys" and I put that in parentheses for a reason.

when I say that I go after these people in order to demand answers for my victims, what I'm really doing is practicing accountability journalism, meaning somebody has to take accountability for hurting others.

And in order to do that, I do think that you do need to connect, find empathy, and compassion for survivors.

- And the book is so storied, as I mentioned, you talk about so many aspects of your various careers, but you share some incredible stories of the difficulties that you faced as a woman in male-dominated professions, harassment that led to depression and near suicide for you.

What advice would you give, especially to young women who are faced with similar situations about the red flags and tapping into that inner bravery by speaking up?

- I write very honestly in my book about the mistakes I made early in my career.

One of the reasons I wrote the book is I want young journalists, young women in any business, really, to be able to say immediately when they see one of those red flags, to speak out about it and to report it.

Instead, what I did early on, especially in my sportscasting career, is that I negotiated with myself.

I compromised, I said, "Okay, in order to get this job "and to have this big, massive platform as a sportscaster, "I'm going to put up with executives," either hitting on me or asking me to dress in a way that I wasn't comfortable dressing.

And I would try to kind of separate my work on camera with what I was having to do off camera, which is to avoid certain executives in the hallways, and walk into wardrobe and try to switch my wardrobe around so that I was more comfortable.

I would say now to young journalists, don't compromise.

If somebody tells you to smile more, argue less, and wear short skirts, then run, find the exit.

This is not the job fo you.

- Such great advice.

Why did you decide to write this book now?

- Recently, my investigations on "Inside Edition" have become really popular with young people because "Inside Edition" now has a YouTube channel that has over, I think right now we're over 11 million subscribers.

Most of them are very young and they love my investigations.

In fact, they binge them.

And after they bing them on YouTube, they'll comment about the stories and why they love them or they love my confrontations.

And when I read those over the last couple of years, I've noticed that a lot of teenagers say, "She reminds me of Wonder Woman.

"She's so brave.

"I wanna be brave like her, "but I'm being bullied in school."

Or, "My mother's being abused by my father "and I wanna be able to stand up to him, "but I'm not brave enough.

"How can I be brave like Lisa Guerrero?"

And I would read these comments, Catherine, and I would weep.

It affected me so deeply to think that they thought of me as brave.

But I wasn't born brave.

I was born shy and insecure.

And after the loss of my mother at eight years old, I was really lost and I was far from being courageous.

So I wrote the book now because I wanted young people to know that you can be brave, that you have an inner superhero inside you.

You can unleash that superhero and I can teach you how to be brave.

- You are so inspiring and the book is very empowering.

And I just have to say, when you're talking about the young people, we have a couple of young people in studio today, and the first thing they said before you came on was, "She's so cool!"

So congratulations.

- Thank you, thank you to them.

Thank you to you, Catherine, and thank you to the people that have inspired me that came before us in journalism.

And I hope I'm somebody that young journalists can look up to and say, "I'm glad I read her book.

"I'm not gonna make those mistakes.

"But boy, I'm sure glad I read "Warrior.""

- Well, you are fantastic and congratulations on all your success and this book is just a must-read.

- [Lisa] Thank you.

- [Catherine] Thanks, Lisa, it's great to see you.

- [Lisa] Great to see you too.

- And that's our show for tonight.

For "Horizonte" and Arizona PBS, I'm Catherine Anaya.

Have a great night.

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