"As a foreign correspondent in the US, be prepared to start from scratch"

Fernanda Ezabella covers lifestyle, politics, entertainment, and technology for Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil's largest newspaper. Her stories have included Apple unveilings in Silicon Valley, movie releases in Hollywood, marijuana plantations in northern California, Bob Dylan's 80th birthday in Minnesota, the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, and the 2018 immigration crisis at the Mexican border. She has been based in Los Angeles for the past 12 years having started her career at Reuters in her hometown of Sao Paulo. She also writes for the newsmagazine Piauí and the news site UOL, and has traveled to 32 U.S. states.

As a foreign correspondent, how did your journey begin in the U.S.?

My journey started in June 2010 as Folha's West Coast correspondent in Los Angeles. My first big interview was with my favorite movie director, Werner Herzog, who lives nearby and drove me home afterwards. Also in 2010 I kept busy with the midterm elections, specifically covering a failed proposition to legalize the recreational use of cannabis in California. I was familiar with the city because my husband was already living here. 

Fernanda Ezabella

In your capacity as a foreign journalist based in the United States, what is the most important part of your job?

Finding stories that are relevant and inspirational to my readership in Brazil is the most important part of my job. For example, I hope that writing about Hollywood's efforts to deal with the pandemic will help inspire the Brazilian movie industry. Or maybe my reports on guaranteed income programs in big American cities will spark conversations in Brazilian cities. For many Brazilian travelers, America begins and ends at the theme parks in Orlando. Hopefully, some will have revised their itineraries after reading about Yellowstone National Park or nuclear missile silos in North Dakota or rafting in Alaska. 

What effect did your experience as a foreign correspondent in the U.S. have on your perspective of America? 

It completely changed my perspective of the U.S. I have traveled across much of this vast country and talked to people from all walks of life, from Silicon Valley billionaires and Hollywood actors to voters in deep rural Wisconsin, environmental activists and homeless people. The wild variety of stories I have pursued gave me a great appreciation for the country and its complexities. 

What lessons have you learned over the years of working as a foreign correspondent? 

I have learned that every country is as diverse as the next one, and you just need to dig a bit. Giving a voice to people from minority groups has come to be an essential part of the job. I also have learned a lot about environmental issues. One of my favorite stories in 2021 was about the mountain lions whose existence is threatened by the urban sprawl of Los Angeles.

Which is the most important part of your work as a U.S.-based foreign journalist? 

Filtering out all the noise and uncovering the relevant stories, as well as finding different points of view, and then writing my stories in an engaging way.

How do you define success in your work as a foreign correspondent? 

Depends what you mean about success. I’ve just been nominated for an award from the Los Angeles Press Club, and last Christmas I got a calendar from a camellia grower I interviewed during my coverage of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Beyond that, editors email me every week commissioning stories, so I must have been doing something right for the past dozen years. 

If aspiring foreign correspondents from around the world wish to work in the United States, what advice would you give them? What message would you like to share with the rest of the foreign-correspondent community in America? 

It's a daily hustle. You have to be hungry and work twice as hard as everyone else. If you're prepared to start from scratch in a new country, you will succeed. As for newsgathering, not everybody is interested in talking to a South American newspaper, but some are intrigued. The United States is arguably the most diverse nation on the planet, and certainly the most generous and powerful. Yet it's relatively young and still finding its way. The rest of the world is transfixed on America. As for Los Angeles, I wouldn't claim that it's the center of the universe, but it does feel like it sometimes.