"D.C. can be tricky as journalists are close to power but far from the people"
Cristóbal Vásquez is a Colombian/Canadian journalist working as the Washington correspondent for France24 in Spanish. He has more than ten years of experience in Newspapers, Radio, and TV for international and national outlets such as The Washington Post, Huffington Post, World Policy Journal, Caracol Radio, and El Tiempo. Previously worked for the Inter-American Development Bank and Procter & Gamble in communications and project management. Holds a dual-Degree Master of Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Columbia University. When younger, he played for a professional soccer team in Medellin, Colombia. He is a member of the Club of Foreign Press Correspondents in the USA.
What has been the key to your success as a foreign correspondent in Washington, DC?
Perhaps not success, but what has allowed me to keep living from doing journalism is being persistent and selling new projects to my employers. New projects aside from daily news coverage that allow me to learn new things, stay updated on the new trends in journalism and build a comparative advantage.
As a foreign journalist, reporting from the White House can sometimes be challenging and challenging. What do people watching you on TV not know about your work?
That many times, we are a one-man-band. We must produce, ask for access to buildings or press briefings, set up interviews, write, record, edit, promote, and engage with our social media audiences all at the same time. It looks fancy, but there is a lot of hard work behind an article, a minute on TV, or a good radio show. Journalism professors usually say that if people knew all the effort it takes to publish a daily newspaper, they would read it on their knees.
How do you pursue your everyday reporting in Washington DC?
Every night I try to share with my editors a list of the most relevant topics to cover the next day. Writing helps organize ideas so before having a live shot, I must write down on a notebook what I am to say on camera. It sounds old school but writing it by hand helps me understand it better. I also have a list of colleagues I follow on social media to learn what they are doing, how they are covering the news I am reporting on. Building that list of references is very helpful and can fast-track your knowledge on complicated topics we have to tackle.
Cristóbal Vásquez
For your reporting work, what are the steps you followed in previous years to build your resources and network of access?
Going to places where the news happens is the most important. Press briefings can be boring but the network opportunities before and after the official events are very important. You can also get interesting insights on how things work. Interesting data and context are shared after these events and that information helps building access and understanding. Reading is very important too; it gives us the context we need to have perspective and avoid saying: “This has no precedent”. “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.”
What should prospective foreign correspondents know before coming to the US to report for the media outlets of their countries?
Some come thinking that the influence and outreach they have in their countries extends to Washington, but soon they realize that national media outlets have priority over international media. Often, they must start from scratch building sources and getting to know how things work in Washington. Humbleness helps!
What are the pitfalls foreign correspondents must avoid when reporting in Washington DC?
We should avoid thinking we are important just because we are reporting from DC. We sometimes feel entitled and believe that are transcendental to the world, but there are many other stories happening outside this city. We are not covering the empire’s capital anymore; real power seems to be elsewhere and stories that affect day-to-day lives. Our value added as journalists should not be the city we report from, but what we do with the information we get from it. I often think how good of a journalist am I outside DC?
Can you recall a story you did well and one you did not? What did you learn from this experience?
On the 6th of January, I was told by my editor in France24 to stay home and avoid the third Maga Million March rally that ended in the Capitol’s takeover. Despite the recommendation, I decided to go and waited for the march in Congress. Things escalated fast, and I was able to report live from there the action was happening. I guess being stubborn is part of a journalist’s DNA and that day it worked out well for reporting purposes.
I recall when I had a Scoop about Nicolas Maduro’s trip to the UN Annual Assembly in 2017 and his potential meeting with Trump. That potential meeting was taken as a fact by the social media editor of my previous outlet and sent as an alert to all our subscribers. The rumor of the meeting grew so fast that the White House press secretary at the time had to deny the ‘potential meeting’ and what started as a scoop ended as fake news from our side.
What message would you like to share with the rest of the foreign correspondent community in America?
DC can be tricky as journalists are close to power but far from the people. This is not the best city to do journalism because we often become megaphones of official sources, congress members, high officials, analysts, ministers, and diplomats. Our resources to contradict what they say are limited given the speed of the news cycle and financial constraints that many foreign correspondents face traveling around the country looking for stories.
