Lourdes Maldonado
María Lourdes Maldonado Alconada is a Spanish television journalist and newscaster. She worked for Antena 3 from 2000 to 2017, firstly as a journalist for Antena 3 Noticias and later as Head of Culture and Society. Maldonado was a newscaster for the local Madrid broadcaster Telemadrid's Telenoticias 1 afternoon news bulletin from September 2017 to September 2021. She has also worked for the news agency Agence France-Presse and has either won or been nominated for various journalistic awards.
Biography
Maldonado was born in Irún, Guipúzcoa on 3 May 1973. She is the daughter of Ana María Alconada and JoséMaldonado Ferrer. Maldonado's extended family were educators and her great-grandfather has a street in Padul named for him. She had wanted to become a reading teacher for young nursery children, but she became interested in journalism after listening to radio bulletins.
After graduating from the University of Navarra in Pamplona with a journalism degree, Maldonado got onto the European Union's Erasmus Programme through the Ministry of Education to study Audiovisual Journalism at the University of Bordeaux, from which she graduated in 1996. She began her professional career conducting the half an hour local news broadcast for the local Irun television station from 1997 to 2000, which she conducted in Basque, French and Spanish, and she also worked for Agence France-Presse as well as Onda Cero in Granada and Pamplona. Maldonado also infrequently appeared on Espejo público in place of during 2002.
In October 2000, Maldonado joined the Basque Country version of the broadcaster Antena 3 as a presenter of the news in the region, taking over from journalist Francisco Blanco Argibay. She began presenting the weekend Antena 3 Noticias Fin de Semana programme after being appointed to the position by Antena 3 Euskadi delegate Marisa Guerrero in September 2003. In some years, she replaced Matías Prats Luque on news bulletins he presented during the holiday season; she rejected an offer to present the daily morning weekday edition of Espejo público which launched in late 2006, because she wanted to spend more time with her family. She was replaced by and between November 2005 and May 2006 and then by Sandra Golpe from November 2008 to May 2009 when she was on maternity leave during both periods of time. She has presented the Premio Planeta de Novela gala since 2007 and has appeared in commercial advertising since 2008. Maldonado appeared in an anti gender violence campaign, which was broadcast on Antena 3 in 2010.
Following nearly a decade as the presenter of Antena 3 Noticias
Although she was liked by Madrid audiences both on television and online which helped increase Telenoticias 1
From 10 September 2022 to 1 September 2023, she co-hosted Hablando claro, a daily morning magazine show on La 1 of TVE, together with Marc Calderó. After this project ended, she moved to Radio Nacional de España, where from 4 September 2023 to 18 July 2025 she hosted Las tardes de RNE.
Since 6 September 2025, she has co-presented the Weekend News with Marc Sala as well as the current affairs program Informe Semanal.
Personal life
She was diagnosed with Milroy's disease when she was in puberty, and the condition means she has poor circulation in her right leg. Maldonado is married to the journalist José Guerrero, with whom she has two children.Awards
Maldonado was nominated for the TP de Oro award in the Best News Presenter category in 2008, and she won both the 2010 Premios Zapping Best Presenter accolade and a television award from the Federación de Asociaciones de Radio y Televisión at the 2010 Antena de Oro ceremony. She was voted to receive the Agrupación de Telespectadores y Radioyentes' award for Best News Presenter for her work in Noticias Fin de Semana on Antena 3 in May 2012.Maldonado was voted the winner of the Best Presenter of Regional Programs Autonomous Iris Award by the Consejo de la Academia de las Ciencias y las Artes de Televisión in both 2018 and 2020. She also received a nomination for the Best News Presenter Award at the 20th National Iris Awards. Maldonado collected the "Vinos Ojos del Guadiana" cultural accolade "for her great professionalism throughout her extensive career as an audiovisual communicator" from the El Progreso cooperative at Villarrubia de los Ojos in February 2020.