A promising journalism career briefly takes a dark turn down the path of Instagram influencing. Alden Wicker, a freelance journalist and author, managed to come out the other side. Her career as a sustainable fashion journalist - as the editor of EcoCult and freelancer for numerous big name publications - culminated with her book To Dye For. We als…

Born in Mexico to American parents, David Luhnow (@davidluhnow) returned to report on the country for decades. Luhnow talks about the tectonic shifts in Mexico and yet, how through all this time, the country's institutions continue to fail. The mental toll of years reporting on Mexico's drug war contributed to his leaving to become the current Unit…

Leaving school at age 16 for a technical apprenticeship, Andrew Downie (@adowniebrazil) would stumble into his first journalism job while traveling in Mexico. Within five years he'd be working for The New York Times in Haiti. After decades of covering Latin America, Andrew now lives in Spain where he is working on a biography of soccer legend Pelé.…

Business is a lot like sports. It's competitive and stock prices keep the score. Also keeping score is one of the world's highest powered business journalists: Liana Baker (@LianaBaker), managing editor for the Bloomberg deals team in the United States. She talks about how dabbling in sports, foreign reporting and environment eventually led her dow…

Can you name the world's eight bear species? Gloria Dickie (@GloriaDickie), a London-based Climate & Environment Correspondent for Reuters, has documented them all in her book Eight Bears. Gloria tells the improbable story of how she conceived and reported the book while working as a freelancer and living on the road as she traveled the world in se…

There are no happy endings in Syria after more than a decade of war. Lina Sinjab (@BBCLinaSinjab), a BBC correspondent based in Beirut, talks about covering the civil war from the start and the terrible toll it has taken on her and her home country. As a multi-format journalist, she regularly produces radio and video documentaries as well as writte…

Climate change reporting often means documenting some of the worst events that ever happen to people. But Kendra Pierre-Louis (@kendrawrites), whether reporting for the podcast How to Save the Planet, or posting pictures of bear sex, manages to make it not totally depressing. Kendra, an independent climate reporter, talks about gradually finding he…

The day the war broke out in Ukraine, Valerie Hopkins (@VALERIEinNYT) was in Kiev unsure of what was about to happen. Only a few months into working for The New York Times, she was at the center of the biggest story in the world. She now reports on the war as one of a dwindling number foreign correspondents in Russia, interviewing Russians who see …

A chance meeting with some French journalists in a New Delhi park led Will Brown (@_Will_Brown) to quit his job as a teacher to become a reporter. After freelancing doesn't work out, he finds himself back in London working at The Economist, eventually being dispatched as a stringer to Senegal. He also talks about covering the outbreak of the Tigray…

The Society of News Design's best designer in the world, Marco Hernandez (@TmarcoH) tells us how he grew up in Costa Rican coffee country and has been recruited to a series of jobs that took him around the world. Ever humble, he also talks about how he likes to draw insects to relax and maintains a website dedicated to his failed projects. Countrie…

The kidnapped Chibok girls were the identifiable victims of Nigeria's war with Boko Haram islamist insurgents. Drew Hinshaw (@drewhinshaw) talks about reporting around Europe and Africa for the Wall Street Journal while co-writing an award-winning book about the Chibok girls on nights and weekends. We also find out what happens when you wear the wr…

Russia invaded Ukraine and the next day Thomas Peter was crossing the border from Poland to cover the war. Tom, a Reuters photographer, thought he understood Russia after spending his 20s living in the country. But little could prepare him for the indiscriminate brutality he saw there. He’ll also talk about his childhood in Soviet East Germany, cov…

Turns out Russian mercenaries stand ready to troll journalists and produce big-budget action movies in war-torn African countries. Neil Munshi, West Africa Editor now for Bloomberg, went to the Central African Republic to report on that mercenary group, while writing an award-winning series of stories seeking to explain the conflicts raging in most…

In this additional bonus content, Jon Lee Anderson talks about what has gone wrong with democracy in Latin America and discusses what it's like to work for the hallowed magazine The New Yorker. Jon Lee's story about Chilean President - https://bit.ly/3ukSKE5 Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod Music: LoveChanc…

Have Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama read your book? Jon Lee Anderson of The New Yorker can say that they have. Jon Lee tells us about his early years chronicling rebel groups and insurgents from Latin America to Asia, culminating in writing a book about the quintessential guerrilla Che Guavara. Working for The New Yorker, he has gotten to know many w…

The open ocean is about as foreign as it gets. No country can claim it. And as a result, a whole lot of bad stuff happens there. Ian Urbina (@ian_urbina) talks about his series of stories for The New York Times about lawlessness at sea, that later became a book and now a non-profit journalism initiative called The Outlaw Ocean Project. Urbina will …

History matters to Julie McCarthy (@JulieMcCarthyJM). She’s gone around the world with National Public Radio to Tokyo, London, Rio de Janeiro, Jerusalem, Islamabad, New Delhi and Manila, trying to understand each place through its history. Her reporting brings to life events like the Hiroshima bombing and the partition of India, explaining how they…

Little Uruguay, we don’t hear from many correspondents based there. Lucinda Elliott (@lucinda_elliott) - who covers South America's Southern Cone of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay for the Financial Times - tells us how she ended up there in the middle of the pandemic. That’s just one way Lucinda has come full circle, having also been laid o…

The foreign country in this episode is the United States. Guga Chacra, a Brazilian journalist based in New York City, is one of the most recognizable faces of Brazilian TV news. With his signature shaggy hair and a legion of Twitter followers, he is known for his work with Globo TV, the 24 hour news channel Globo News, his column for newspaper O Gl…

Reporting the Arab Spring is the story of a lifetime. Evan Hill (@evanhill) tells us how a blog got him hired by Al Jazeera in the Middle East where he was sent to cover the Arab Spring, witnessing the Egyptian Revolution first hand from Tahrir Square. He discusses almost quitting journalism, only to later join the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York T…

What drew so much media attention to Venezuela only a few years ago and why has it fizzled out? Stephen Gibbs (@STHGIbbs), a freelancer based in Caracas, tells us about covering the unrest and his encounters with Hugo Chavez and Maduro. As a former longtime BBC correspondent, Gibbs also talks about covering Cuba - including Castro revealing his rel…

Writing a book isn’t easy, but James Griffiths (@jgriffiths) of Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail sure makes it look that way. Griffiths talks about getting his start in journalism in Shanghai and Hong Kong just as the Chinese government was ratcheting up censorship of the internet. That became the subject of his first book, which he wrote whil…

Mitch Moxley (@mitch_moxley) talks about the world of book writing, agents and getting your magazine stories optioned by Hollywood. Here are links to some of the things we talked about: Mitch's Rent a White Guy story for The Atlantic - https://bit.ly/39YlbwO His book Apologies to My Censors - https://amzn.to/3B64BqR His true crime story Knives Outb…

Going viral. North Korea. Anthony Bourdain. Beijing Olympics. Long-form magazine journalism. Narrative non-fiction. Stage plays. Executive editor at Maxim. Mitch Moxley has done a lot of stuff. As a magazine editor and freelance writer, previously in China and now in New York City, Mitch tells us about his careers highs and disappointments, as well…

The journalist’s holy trinity: the right time, the right place, the right beat. You’re lucky if you find it once in your career. Sue-Lin Wong (@suelinwong) tells how she thinks she hit it in the Hong Kong protests in 2019. Now working as a China correspondent for The Economist based in Hong Kong, she also has the unusual distinction of having been …

Financial journalists don’t get the respect they deserve. Scottish journalist Jamie McGeever (@ReutersJamie) has traveled the world covering financial markets, including NYC, London, Madrid and all over Brazil and Europe. His work at Reuters put him at the center of the chaos of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Also discussed: bullfighting, Celtic…

Abdi Latif Dahir, The New York Times' East Africa Correspondent, talks more in-depth about his coverage of Rwanda and shares a special moment reporting in Mogadishu. This is a bonus content from FoCo's interview with Abdi. For the full interview, please check out episode 54. Note: Apologies that this is not the usually scheduled full episode that I…

The long road to a Pulitzer. Now a Mexico-based reporter for Vice, Emily Green (@emilytgreen) has had a couple career booms and busts. The WSJ job that doesn't pan out leads her into radio reporting. The pandemic leads her to flee Mexico. But you never know, maybe you'll be sitting in your childhood bedroom and feeling sorry for yourself, when you …

Childhood journals lead to journalism. Abdi Latif Dahir (@Lattif) started journaling as a way to process the violence around him when, at 8 years old, his family returned to Somalia from Kenya. He tells us how that experience influences his reporting on conflicts as East Africa Correspondent for The New York Times. He also talks about his reporting…

An Editor-at-Large is not someone who is wanted for arrest by the police for crimes against journalism. Bryan Curtis (@bryancurtis) fills us in on what it means to be an Editor-at-Large for The Ringer, which includes hosting the popular media analysis podcast The Press Box. Countries featured: USA Publications featured: Nightline, The New Republic,…

Patrick St. Michel (@mbmelodies) isn’t a professional foreigner, he just plays one on TV. As a freelance music and pop culture journalist, Patrick will take us inside the world of J Pop, K Pop, Japanese baseball and convenience store food. And yes, he’s willing to go see your band play in Thailand on less than 24 hours notice. Countries featured: J…

"Welcome to China, where nothing is allowed but everything is possible." Independent publisher Graham Earnshaw helped launch the careers of a generation of China journalists by giving them jobs at Reuters, Xinhua Finance or his own magazine China Economic Review. Working for Graham, host Jake Spring remembers a man surrounded in a mythology of old …

"A love letter to journalists." A fitting description for the film Spotlight and possibly this podcast. For our 50th episode, we look back at the 2015 movie and hear views on the movie from eight past guests. Guests in order of appearance: Ep. 3 - Camilla Costa, BBC, London (@_camillacosta) Ep. 9 - Brian Rosenthal, New York Times, New York (@brianm…

Reporting in jungles isn't for the faint of heart. Rhett Butler, founder and editor-in-chief of environmental news website Mongabay, talks about getting stranded in a dangerous situation in Suriname, the many jungle diseases he has gotten, and some tips for getting phone signal in the rainforest. He also tells us the origins of Mongabay go back to …

Yes, sometimes film critics hurt people’s feelings. Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) will get into the nitty gritty of what it’s like to work as a critic from the demise of newspapers and the rise of the freelance critic to how New York mag has diversified its stable of critics. Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/forei…

Zooming with Chloé Zhao - what could better typify the pandemic era? Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) takes us inside how she did her recent cover story for New York magazine about Zhao. We also hear about what it’s like to be a critic - from panning the remake of Mulan to championing foreign movies that get much less attention in the United State…

The podcast tradition of foreign correspondents getting ejected from countries continues. For Gerry Shih, China Correspondent for the Washington Post, there was the added twist of getting kicked out during a global pandemic. On the eve of his reassignment as WaPo’s India bureau chief, Gerry looks back at his time covering China, which he is convinc…

What do bagels and sexual harassment have in common? The food industry! Serena Dai (@ssdai), a senior features editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, has made her name by thinking and writing about all things food - emphasis on ALL THINGS - from the hilarious/inconsequential to the direly serious issues of sexual misconduct and racism. A local jour…

Deep in the jungle, Fabiano Maisonnave finds amazing stories to tell. He is the only correspondent for a major Brazilian newspaper to be based in the Amazon rainforest region. Long before he reported on remote Amazon tribes, Fabiano tells us about leaving his first assignment in farm country over death threats. He then sets off on a long period as …

Prague, come for the theater, stay for the podcasting. Morgan Childs, co-host and producer of the Foreign Insiders podcast, tells us about getting her start reporting stories on food and “weird” Eastern Europe. She has now found a new professional life as an audio journalist, launching her podcast series on migration in the Czech Republic. Countrie…

Jane Arraf (@janearraf) didn’t go seeking war, war came to her. She first moved to Iraq in 1997 under Saddam Hussein and was kicked out twice before returning when the U.S. invaded. She also bore witness to the carnage in Mosul in the wake of ISIS. Her reporting on conflict stands out for its humanity, vibrancy and - when possible - hope. She is no…

Remember traveling? While you’re stuck inside in the pandemic, you can still travel far and wide thanks to the Far from Home podcast by public radio veteran Scott Gurian. Scott takes you along for the ride on one of the world’s epic road trips from London to Mongolia and back across the deserts of Iran and mountains of central Asia. The Peabody awa…

Sarah Esther Maslin explains what it's like to work at the Economist including the lack of bylines, its distinctive voice and viewpoint, and an unusual time when she broke some news. Sarah’s story about the Amazon rainforest - http://econ.st/3oCdC3I Her story about the Honduras election - http://econ.st/3tbOXGL…

We go deep on a history of Central American violence with Sarah Esther Maslin (@sarahmaslin). She discusses the years she’s spent reporting out a prospective book about Latin America’s largest modern massacre in El Salvador, stemming from her lifelong fascination with violent tragedies and the marks they leave on society. That project led her to fr…

It turns out there’s a lot more to Russia than just Putin and election meddling. Sure, we talk about that, but independent radio producer Charles Maynes in Moscow tells us tales of Russian culture from the early Soviet era to present. While he may not always think of himself as a journalist, that may be what makes his journalism work so great. Also…

We prowl the halls of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team in the capable hands of Tim Cato (@tim_cato), a staff writer with The Athletic. Tim got into sports reporting as a 17-year-old fan, but now he’s seen too much and the fandom has melted away. Still, he loves his job reporting on the huge characters, power dynamics and colorful feature storie…

Ode to a Grecian journ(alist). Family looms large in this episode with Joanna Kakissis (@joannakakissis), a correspondent in Athens for National Public Radio, whose Greek parents instilled in her the importance of their culture from a young age. She made a mark early in her career as part of a Pulitzer finalist newspaper reporting team before retur…

As a journalist, who you are matters. Freelance journalist Fariba Nawa (@faribanawa) tells how she learned this the hard way. But her identity, that early in her career may have hindered her, has turned into a strength. She has gone from refugee to a reporter who covers refugees. She is an Afghan American proud of her heritage who also struggles wi…

A very special election episode! Libby Nelson (@libbyanelson) talks to us about how she is approaching U.S. presidential election coverage as Senior Deputy Policy Editor at Vox. As you may well have guessed, covering this election has turned out to be very different than we could have predicted. Libby also talks about how she came to work for journ…

What’s this? There’s more? We talk in-depth about his job helping shape the visual language of The New York Times and his approach to video journalism, as well as an offbeat story set in North Korea that never quite happened. Countries featured: North Korea, USA Jonah's short doc about zoonotic diseases - https://nyti.ms/2F0fOkS Follow us on Twitte…