Bill Gentile: "Never Take No For an Answer"

Bill Gentile is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and documentarian with an accomplished career spanning over four decades. His latest works include a new documentary and an upcoming memoir titled “Wait for Me: True Stories of War, Love and Rock and Roll”. Gentile has covered conflicts spanning from The Contra War in Nicaragua to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With his impressive resume and experience in the field, Gentile offers an unparalleled look into what it takes to be a successful freelance journalist. Gentile speaks to Foreign Press about his latest documentary ‘Freelancers’, how he manages risky situations abroad, and the importance of freelance journalists. 

Bill Gentile | Photo Credits: Taylor Mickal

In your documentary Freelancers: with Bill Gentile: Mexico, you had a wide range of topics and journalists to interview, how did you choose which stories to seek out and follow? 

I chose Mexico for the first episode of the series partly because that's where I first started my career right out of graduate school at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, in 1977. So I knew the territory and still have some personal and professional contacts there. When I first landed in the Mexican capital some four decades ago, Mexico City was, and still is, what we consider a journalistic "hub." It's a place where journalists can base themselves to cover not just a single country, but a larger region where a number of countries are connected by geography, transportation, language, culture, economics, and so on. Mexico is that kind of place. Most of the journalists based in Mexico City cover not only Mexico, but also Central America and the Caribbean. This kind of structure is typical of many other regions of the world. 

In terms of which people and which stories I wanted to cover in the documentary, I set out to touch all the bases of what constitutes the practice of foreign correspondence today. And these bases include the freelancers who have stepped into the void left by mainstream media cutting back on bureaus, full-time staff correspondents and foreign news in general; the increase in the number of women working as foreign correspondents; the reliance on local freelancers and "fixers;" the important role of nonprofits funding freelancers; the increased danger that journalists face today, and more. 

In Freelancers you touch upon the things others may sacrifice to follow their craft in freelance journalism. What are some things you’ve given up personally to have the freedom of being a freelance journalist?

In general, freelancers give up stability and security in exchange for the freedom and the ability to pursue the stories that compel us, as opposed to stories preferred by mainstream, corporate sponsors that very often fail to resonate with the independent spirit that drives us as individuals. In particular, I've given up countless Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays, weddings, and just everydays, with some of the people whom I love most. These, of course, are members of my family. 

Speaking as a journalist who has been freelancing for decades, would you say freelancing is as sustainable an alternative to full-time work now in this time when healthcare and housing are even more inaccessible as they’ve ever been? 

I believe there is little question that freelancing is more difficult today than it was when I first started out. And the reasons are many, beginning with the fact that there simply are fewer outlets where one can find work than there were 40 years ago. In the Foreign Correspondence course that I teach at American University in Washington, D.C., I instruct students that the diminished number of "traditional" foreign correspondents is the result of three factors: technology that has eliminated the need for many of the jobs associated with our craft; the global interdependence that has bound together communities that co-exist in different parts of the world; economic forces that conspire against the maintenance of foreign bureaus as well as staff or even freelance correspondents. 

Having said all that, there is hope on the horizon that comes in the shape of nonprofit organizations dedicated to supporting and protecting freelancers around the world. But that, perhaps, is another discussion. 

Bill Gentile | Photo Credits: Scott Wallace

Through your decades-long career, what work would you say you’re most proud of? 

My book of photographs, Nicaragua, certainly is my single most important contribution to our craft. It is the culmination of years of hard and sometimes perilous work to document the beauty, the joy and the heartbreak of a place and her people with the rest of the world. Second on that list would be my most recent documentary, FREELANCERS: Mexico. And I say this because the film is the result of very hard work by a handful of people striving together toward a worthy, common goal.

What motivated you to write, direct, and produce FREELANCERS? What was the process of getting it off the ground? 

I've been freelancing for some four decades now, and have lived the challenges that freelancers face every day. I believe the emergence of these journalists is a crucial watershed in the history of our craft. I wanted to explain this watershed, not just to other members of our guild, but also to the general public. To make the general public more aware of the people who bring them the news and information that they consume every day. And, ultimately, I wanted to push back on the very dangerous lies about "fake news" and "enemies of the people." 

You’ve been in situations where other journalists may have decided to evacuate. In these situations, what makes you stay? How does a freelance foreign correspondent approach risk calculation? How do you decide it’s time to leave a country? 

If I may, I will take a bit of a "left turn" in our conversation, and will answer the three questions above with a brief excerpt from my upcoming memoir, WAIT FOR ME: True Stories of War, Love and Rock & Roll. This excerpt comes from a section in the book titled, THE Decision: 

"Key to heading into any combat situation is the decision I had to make before going there. I prepared myself for the consequences of doing so. Am I physically and emotionally prepared for this? Can I accept the consequences of the decision to put myself – and others – in a dangerous situation? Do I accept the fact that I could get permanently injured or even killed as a result of this decision? 

It is absolutely critical that I have this conversation with myself because if I fail to do this and get caught in something really hairy, I run the risk of falling apart. I could freeze up. Or panic. And that will endanger not only me, but also the people around me. I will become a liability. 

I have seen this happen. Men frozen under fire. Unable to respond. Paralyzed by fear. And then full of remorse for not being able to react.

So even before I start making the contingency plans ... I made the broader decision about the entire endeavor. 

I had answered these questions early on in my coverage of the conflicts raging across Central America. I had decided that the story was so important that it was worth the risk. I was convinced that my country’s intervention in these poor, developing countries needed to be addressed and challenged by the institution whose responsibility it was to do so – journalism. The media. I had decided to accept the consequences of my actions. 

... all of these are part of the imprecise, mysterious calculation on covering conflict. Or not. The final ingredient to this alchemy is this: Gut. What does my gut tell me? What does my gut say? I learned to listen to my gut. When my gut tells me not to go, I don’t go. I stay home. Most of the time at this stage of my personal and professional life, my gut says, “Go.” 

Thanks for allowing me this brief, but I hope illustrative, digression from the interview format. If you are interested, my memoir should be available on Amazon this spring. 

What is the most important lesson you teach your students at American University? 

The most important lesson that I teach my students at American University is that each one of them can be the architect and the owner of his/her own destiny. I teach them never to take "no" for an answer. I teach them to follow their dreams.