INTERVIEW: Maria Elena Salinas chases ‘The Real Story’ on Investigation Discovery

Maria Elena Salinas is on the case.

On her new Investigation Discovery series, Salinas brings the same fortitude and determination that have been the hallmarks of her journalistic career. The Real Story With Maria Elena Salinas is a 10-part series that digs deeper on headline-grabbing crime stories. Upcoming episodes cover the 2016 Orlando nightclub massacre, a 1997 murder in the suburbs of Seattle, an untimely death in Illinois and a serial killer in New Mexico.

Salinas has built an impressive career and is often considered one of the most recognized and accomplished journalists in the United States and around the world. She has co-anchored Univision Network’s Noticiero Univision since 1987 and also co-hosts the newsmagazine show Aquí y Ahora. When she’s not reporting on the news of the day, she centers her attention on these tragic crimes and their backstories for Investigation Discovery.

The Monday, June 5 episode of The Real Story is focused on the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The episode will run close to the one-year anniversary of the horrible terrorist incident that left 49 people dead and more than 50 others injured. The nightclub was a “safe haven for the LGBTQ community,” but on June 12, 2016, the scene turned violent around 2 a.m., according to a press release for The Real Story. The killer was 29-year-old Omar Mateen, and Salinas centers her one-hour show on the survivors of the mass shooting and one man who allegedly knew Mateen.

“Well, about a week after this [massacre] happened, I received a tweet message from someone that said, ‘I want to talk to you about the Pulse massacre,'” Salinas said in a recent phone interview with Hollywood Soapbox. “I always get these kinds of tweets of people wanting to tell me something, and I don’t always pay attention to it because there’s a lot of people that just tweet information that’s not necessarily accurate. But then he called me [and] the newsroom, and he said he wanted to speak to me and only me. So my boss called me and told me, ‘This guy wants to talk to you. He says, he really wants to talk to you, that he has an exclusive for you.’ So after speaking to him at length, I realized this was a story worth telling.”

Salinas originally interviewed the man for Univision, and for that segment, he requested his identity not be revealed. Salinas and her team obliged and used prosthetics on his face and didn’t name him directly. “I think, like with anything as a journalist, that you report the news, and you let the audience decide whether they believe that it’s true or not,” Salinas said.

Salinas contacted the man again and asked him whether he would approve of another interview for The Real Story. He not only agreed, but this time he was willing to show his face and offer his name. That episode airs Monday, June 5 at 10 p.m. on Investigation Discovery. The network offers some previews of what was said to Salinas, and the details of her interview will be discussed at length in the episode.

To broaden the story for the one-hour program, Salinas and her team also contacted the FBI and talked with agents involved in the case. She also tells the story of three survivors from that tragic night.

“We have the tale of three Pulse survivors, and it’s amazing to be able to hear directly from them what happened that night step by step,” Salinas said. “And it’s really a compelling story. I mean, I had chills when I was listening to them. Of course, our interviews are lengthy, as you know, for these types of programs. These are three friends who went out that night, decided to continue their evening after dinner and drinks, and they went to Pulse. So each of them told me separately everything that happened that night step by step and what they went through and how they ended up in the same bathroom stall without even knowing that the other was there, and luckily they survived to tell their story. It’s made them better people because of that experience. It’s fascinating to hear first hand in detail what happened that night.”

It’s remarkable that this special episode of The Real Story all began with tweet from a year ago. Salinas, who has interviewed every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter, understands that sometimes the best leads come from the most unexpected of places.

“People just want to give you tips,” she said. “In this case, this gentleman contacted me, and I said, ‘Why? Why do you want to talk to me?’ He said, ‘Because I trust you.’ When he gave me his name, he said, ‘Search in your social media. You’ll see that I am a follower of yours, and I have been following your career for many years. And I trust you.’ I also do a news magazine with Univision called Aquí y Ahora. I think that a lot of people trust that show because it’s not sensationalist. We cover all different types of topics, including crime stories. We do a lot of investigations that we treat with so much delicacy and so much respect that thank God people trust us enough to talk to us, and this is why this man reached out to me. But sometimes we have to dig. Sometimes we have to go and ask questions and knock on doors and don’t take answers sometimes at face value but dig a little deeper. I think that’s what we all have to do. That’s what a journalist’s role is, to ask and ask and ask and ask until you find the truth, until you find the story behind the story.”

Salinas has been chasing stories for decades, and she’s a self-proclaimed workaholic. She works at Univision five days a week and then devotes her weekends to Investigation Discovery. There’s hardly time to take a breath.

“It’s hard for me to keep still,” she said. “I like to do things right. I don’t like to do things half-assed. I like to do them right. I love telling stories. That’s the most important thing for us as journalists is to tell stories. That’s what I like to do. I love long form. I think, as a TV journalist, having a whole hour to tell the story is a real privilege.”

She added: “There’s a way of multiplying yourself and just finding the time. It’s just a matter of organizing. Then also my daughters are now in college, which helps a little bit because if they were home, they’re my priority.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

The Real Story With Maria Elena Salinas airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on Investigation Discovery. Click here for more information.