"People are what make a story inspiring"
Maria Danilova is a journalist at Agence France-Presse in Washington D.C. She has spent over 10 years reporting from Russia, Ukraine, and other ex-Soviet states for the Associated Press. She also covered education and foreign affairs in AP’s Washington Bureau. Her long-form stories have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, Tablet, Columbia Journalism Review, VICE News, Rest of World, and other publications. Maria Danilova is the recipient of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University and the winner of the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award. Her first book, a children’s novel titled “Anya Here and There” is out in December.
As a journalist, how would you describe the differences between reporting from the US and Russia?
These are obviously two very different countries with different political systems and different history. But in many ways the job is similar -- you try to make sense of complex political, economic, and social developments in a vast and diverse country and then explain them to the world in a clear and engaging way.
You spent ten years as the Associated Press' foreign correspondent in Russia and chief foreign correspondent in Ukraine. Tell us about your work during that time. What were the most extraordinary stories you covered and what lessons did you learn?
I covered the early years of Putin’s presidency, the trial of Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who ended up serving 10 years in prison, and a suicide bombing in the center of Moscow. I got to send a team of cosmonauts and a billionaire tourist to space from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan -- back when SpaceX wasn’t yet around. I covered two revolutions and numerous anti-government protests in post-Soviet Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia, and in Russia. I interviewed sitting presidents, Holocaust survivors, dissidents, victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, inmates, and oligarchs. It was an interesting time.
Maria Danilova
In your career as a journalist and foreign correspondent, were there any moments when you felt you were in danger?
When I covered street protests, unrest, and conflict.
When was the most difficult moment in your career as a journalist?
I would say reporting on the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine was difficult. I covered it from day one when the first tents were set up in the center of Kiev until the massacre in February 2014 that left over 100 people dead and prompted President Victor Yanukovych to flee Ukraine and abandon his palatial residence outside of Kiev, which later became a monument to corruption of sorts. Covering the Maidan was four months of round-the-clock work, often dangerous -- with government forces attempting to storm the protest camp several times, with snipers opening fire, buildings burning, tear gas used. Several of my colleagues were injured. But as hard as it was, every day I had the feeling that I was witnessing history being made, it was immensely powerful.
Besides covering conflict, dealing with human tragedy and trauma is also difficult. One of the hardest stories I’ve had to write was about a mother in Ukraine whose son was dying from cancer. The boy was in immense pain, but he was denied opioid pain medication because of archaic Soviet-era rules meant to curb drug trafficking. She told me how once her son nearly killed himself when he tried to jump out of a hospital window because he could no longer stand the pain. The piece that I wrote made a lot of noise and helped turn things around. Some of those restrictions on medical narcotics were eventually repealed but reporting that story was psychologically draining.
What are elements of the work of a correspondent in a foreign country that you can share with us as advice or insights from your experience?
Get sourced up. Talk to as many people as you can from all levels of society: politicians, business people, doctors, scientists, artists. That is the beauty of the job - as a foreign correspondent you get to cover an entire country or even an entire region, cherry-picking the most interesting stories that don’t always have to be about politics. Use this opportunity to read up and immerse yourself into a subject that you always found fascinating -- music, food, art, science -- and then write about it in a way that helps illuminate that subject itself but also tells a broader story of the country you are covering. Do get hostile environment training before you travel to a conflict zone or before you are sent to cover street protests, it really helps. And most importantly -- enjoy your time as a foreign correspondent. It’s such an interesting job, such a unique opportunity to learn about a country, a culture, about its history and people and tell the world about it.
As a journalist, what makes a story inspiring to you?
It’s always the people: hearing their stories, making their voices heard through the stories that I write, and hopefully helping them or helping others like them, if not right away, then in the future.
How do you feel about the current state of press freedom around the world?
Needless to say, the decline of press freedoms around the world is a big problem. Functioning democracies cannot exist without a robust fourth estate.
When someone asks, "how can I become a foreign correspondent" and "how can I be successful as a foreign correspondent" what is your response or advice?
My first piece of advice is this: learn foreign languages, which will immediately give you a leg up on other journalists applying for the same job. Also, if there is a particular country or region that you want to cover and you are not seeing any current job opportunities there, try to go there anyway, even for a brief period. Try to freelance, get a job or an internship at the local English-language paper or some other local publication, write yourself into that beat, get to know the people and sources on the ground. Then, when a job opportunity does come up, you will be the first candidate in line.
