Anna Vaccarella (born August 31, 1968 in

Maracay Maracay () is a city in north-central Venezuela, near the Caribbean coast, and is the capital and most important city of the state of Aragua. Most of it falls under the jurisdiction of Girardot Municipality. The population of Maracay and its ...

Aragua Aragua State (, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. It is located in the north-central region of Venezuela. It has plains, jungles and Caribbean beaches. The most popular beaches are Cata and Choroni. It has Venezuela's first national par ...

) is a Venezuelan

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

. She currently works in radio show on

Unión Radio Unión may refer to: Places * Unión, Paraguay * Unión Municipality, Falcón, Venezuela * Unión, Montevideo, Uruguay * Unión Cantinil, Huehuetenango, Guatemala * Unión, San Luis, Argentina * Unión Department, Córdoba Province, Argentina * U ...

Biography and career

She was born in

on August 31, 1968, and raised in

Cagua Cagua () is a city of Venezuela, capital of the Sucre Municipality of Aragua State. Cagua is part of the metropolitan area of Maracay. History Cagua was established in 1620 as "Cagua La Vieja", a town of original Spaniards. Cagua was rebuilt ...

. She is the daughter of

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

father Carmelo Vaccarella (originally from

Messina Messina ( , ; ; ; ) is a harbour city and the capital city, capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 216,918 inhabitants ...

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

), who immigrated to Cagua, where he met his future wife,

Slovenian Slovene or Slovenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe * Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia * Slovenes, an ethno-linguistic group mainly living in Slovenia * Sl ...

mother Anna Ilija (originally from

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

), while she was visiting one of her sisters who lived there. Ilija immigrated to

Güigüe Guigue (pronounced Gwigwe) is a city in the south of the Valencia Lake, in Carabobo, Venezuela. It is the capital of the Carlos Arvelo Municipality and of the Guigue parish. The Guigue River flows through the city, draining in Lake Valencia. Ety ...

when she was five years old. She has one brother, Antonio (born 1966). At 17 years of age, Vaccarella moved to Caracas to study journalism at the

Andrés Bello Catholic University Andrés Bello Catholic University () is a private university in Venezuela. One of the largest universities in Venezuela, UCAB has campuses in several cities, such as Caracas (main campus), Los Teques, Guayana Region, Guayana, and Coro region, Cor ...

, where she graduated first of its class. She began her career in

RCTV Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV and sometimes referred to as the Canal de Bárcenas) is a Venezuelan over-the-top streaming service and formerly a free-to-air television Television network, network headquartered in the Caracas neighborhood of Q ...

, where worked as a journalist for 10 years. Vaccarella started as a

correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...

, then with only 24 years old, she led ''Alerta'', a

newsmagazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio, or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories in greater depth than newspapers or new ...

television program. She also ventured into radio and worked for 8 years in Kys FM 101.5. After she left RCTV Vaccarella joins

Venevisión Venevisión () is a Venezuelan free-to-air television channel and one of Venezuela's largest television networks, owned by the Cisneros Media division of Grupo Cisneros. It was founded in 1961 by Diego Cisneros. It is one of the major telenove ...

, where she had the opportunity to work as

news anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

together with journalists Unai Amenabar and Eduardo Rodríguez. She worked in Venevisión for 12 years, until December 2013. Then, she decides to return to the radio to be the host of the program ''En Sintonía'' transmitted by Unión Radio 90.3 FM.

Personal life

In 2005, Vaccarella marries her colleague Román Lonzinski. The couple had difficulties to conceive but as a result of

in vitro ''In vitro'' (meaning ''in glass'', or ''in the glass'') Research, studies are performed with Cell (biology), cells or biological molecules outside their normal biological context. Colloquially called "test-tube experiments", these studies in ...

treatments, her twins Isabella and Sofia were born on May 7, 2011. On July 31, 2015, Vaccarella sent a statement in which she revealed that after having a hysterectomy, the results of the biopsy showed that she had

non-Hodgkin lymphoma Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include enlarged lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, weight loss, and tiredn ...

, a type of cancer that attacks lymph cells and bone marrow. On February 2, 2016, she underwent a bone marrow transplant in New York City. Approximately five months later, Vaccarella returned to Venezuela and resumed her work at Unión Radio.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaccarella, Anna 1968 births People from Aragua Venezuelan women journalists Living people Andrés Bello Catholic University alumni