Government & Politics

WASHINGTON, April 2 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ -- Michael M. Gonzalez, a veteran foreign correspondent and editor for The Wall Street Journal, has taken over communications and media relations at The Heritage Foundation, a leading Washington think tank.

Gonzalez, a native of Havana, Cuba, covered the stock market for the Journal before editing its opinion pages in Europe and Asia during 11 years at the newspaper. He joined Heritage on March 23 as vice president of communications for the conservative policy research organization.

"Mike takes on a big part of Heritage's mission to persuade more and more people that only conservative principles will build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish," Heritage President Edwin J. Feulner said.

Gonzalez, 48, is responsible for relations with print and broadcast media across domestic and foreign policy fronts.

He has a bachelor's degree in communications from Boston's Emerson College and a master's in business administration from Columbia Business School. He is fluent in Spanish and French, and reads Italian and Portuguese.

As a reporter with Agence France-Presse wire service from 1987 to 1993, Gonzalez covered such hot spots as Pakistan, Cyprus, Panama, Afghanistan and South Korea.

The Wall Street Journal sent him to Hong Kong in 1995 as deputy editor of the editorial pages of the Asia edition. In 1998, he went to Brussels as deputy editor of the editorial pages in Europe. Five years later, he returned to Hong Kong as editor of the pages.

Inspired by President George W. Bush's call for America to end tyranny, Gonzalez left the newspaper in 2005, first to become a speechwriter at the Securities and Exchange Commission and then a communications adviser and speechwriter at the State Department.

The Heritage Foundation is the nation's most broadly supported public policy research institute, with more than 400,000 individual, foundation and corporate donors. Founded in 1973, it has a staff of 244 and an annual expense budget of more than $60 million.

Note to editors: For photographs, interview requests or more details, please call Israel Ortega, senior media associate, at 202-608-6176 or e-mail israel.ortega@heritage.org.

SOURCE The Heritage Foundation