Juan Guillermo Ríos

Juan Guillermo Ríos Rendón rose from childhood poverty in Medellín's Manrique neighborhood to become the most watched television news face in Colombia during the mid-1980s. Contemporary obituaries place his birth in 1951. He was the fourth of eleven siblings. His mother washed other people's laundry in the Santa Elena creek. His father, a house painter, died when Juan Guillermo was about twelve. Relatives and later profiles describe periods of hunger and begging before a family surnamed Marín helped place him at Colegio Bolivariano and later supported his journalism studies at the Universidad de Antioquia. He also studied communication sciences at the University of Louvain in Belgium.

On 2 April 1970, aged about twenty, he flew to Bogotá to join Caracol Radio, later recalling a vow that Medellín would not see him hungry again. Alfonso Lizarazo gave him an early radio opening. By his mid-twenties he was directing the news program Telenoticias, and in 1975 he served as press chief for President Alfonso López Michelsen.

His national fame peaked when he directed and presented Noticiero de las Siete for Programar Televisión around 1984 and 1985. In a two-channel television market the newscast drew audience shares commonly reported above 70 percent, a rating mark later writers still treat as unmatched. Colleagues and essayists called him Colombia's first modern anchorman: part producer, part star presenter, with a lively style far from the stiff delivery of the era. His closing wish of "paz, amor y buen genio" became a popular catchphrase. He scored major interviews, including a remembered conversation with M-19 leader Jaime Bateman. Gabriel García Márquez, then in Mexican exile, was later said to have valued him as exceptionally well informed about Colombia.

The craft carried lethal risk. In 1982 he was kidnapped by the M-19. In 1985 his work faced censorship that contributed to his exit from Noticiero de las Siete. He was shot at while riding in a vehicle in Bogotá and lived under threats linked to investigative reporting. After leaving the flagship newscast he built and worked through Notivisión and other ventures, and appeared across Caracol Televisión, Caracol Radio, Radio Santa Fe, Radio Melodía, Semana, and police radio newsrooms. He later taught journalism and advised for nearly two decades at Universidad Sergio Arboleda.

In November 1998 doctors found a kidney tumor that spread toward the spleen and colon. After surgery he suffered a colon perforation, peritonitis, systemic failure, several cardiac arrests, and months in a coma at Hospital San Ignacio in Bogotá. He later said the ordeal remade his priorities: away from ratings and luxury brands, toward his children and a renewed spiritual life. In 2022 he and his journalist son Andrés Ríos López published the memoir Memorias con paz, amor y buen genio with Intermedio Editores. He won the Premio Nacional de Periodismo Simón Bolívar three times and recognition from the Círculo de Periodistas de Bogotá.

In his final period he lived with advanced after-effects of earlier illness, including Alzheimer's disease noted by his son, and returned from Bogotá to Medellín for care. He died there on 6 September 2026 at age 75, at 12:30 p.m., with family present. In a 2021 El Tiempo interview he had asked to be remembered as a reporter: "Cuando muera, yo quiero un epitafio que diga: Aquí yace Juan Guillermo Ríos. Profesión: reportero."