After a period as editor of his high school newspaper, the Lane Reporter, González attended Columbia College and graduated in 1968.

[7][8] In 1981, he was elected president of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, a political organization that concentrated on registering Latino voters.

[citation needed] In December 2006, he reported the results of an exclusive interview with the purported "fourth man" who was present at the scene on November 25 when plainclothes NYPD officers shot and killed Sean Bell.

[11] González has written extensively on the health effects arising from the September 11 attacks and the cover-up of Ground Zero air hazards in columns in the New York Daily News.

[14] The voices of González and Amy Goodman, from an episode of "Democracy Now", were used (uncredited) over news footage concerning Hurricane Katrina in the opening montage of New Orleans at the beginning of the action-drama film Streets of Blood (2009).