Always Go

Always Go is a gripping memoir charting a tumultuous decade as a foreign correspondent, set against Venezuela's transformation into a failed state, and conflicts and crises across the globe. It's a story about idealism colliding with reality—about the search for purpose when the institutions meant to uphold truth fall short.

Prologue

I didn't often make this sort of mistake. I was backed into a corner; the walls to my left and behind me funneled rocks, glass bottles and whatever other shrapnel protesters hurled right at me. They weren't aiming for me, rather for the Venezuelan soldiers lined up to my right. My camera lens was trained on the soldiers' weapons, ready for the next muzzle flash, though my eyes kept darting to the protesters lest they launch something more dangerous my way. Rocks and bottles smacked my helmet, as tear gas seeped into my mask.

I'd been in this type of environment countless times and was normally adept at positioning, getting a clear view, and taking down quotes, photos, and video, without putting myself in significant danger. I'd done this—as well as numerous hostile environment and self-defense courses—frequently enough to know that the best defense was thinking ahead: Make sure you have a way out and make sure you take it before things escalate. That is, don't get to where I was now.

Thankfully, I was well protected. Solid boots, shin pads, knee pads, a heavy-duty flak jacket, gas mask, and Kevlar helmet kept whatever landed from bothering me too much. The real dangers were flaming Molotov cocktails or live fire. Thankfully neither appeared in anyone's arsenal just yet.

Jhon, a young Reuters motorcyclist and regular partner on these outings, had made a run for it along the gap between protesters and soldiers. His hands beckoned me over. My calculation, however, was that following him was more dangerous than staying put. I'd rather crouch and wait it out with a few light smacks to my protective gear than be struck by something carrying far more momentum.

So I waited, depressing my camera's shutter while looking around to ensure the scene didn't devolve.

But what was I doing here? There was barely a story to tell. News is deviation from the mean, and Venezuela's mean had descended in recent years precisely to what I was witnessing. The country was undergoing a humanitarian crisis, with millions earning a dollar a month, suffering food shortages, insecurity, and rampant inflation. I don't know how many times I wrote that sentence. Our headline at Reuters that day—April 4, 2017—was evergreen: "Venezuela security forces battle anti-Maduro protesters."

Here, on the ground covering one of the world's worst crises, was precisely the position for which I'd spent the last decade narrowly aiming. I'd made it, and made it with the world's top news outlet in a well-paid staff position with unlimited expenses. But what was my purpose?

Everybody around me was suffering, earning nothing, not eating properly, mentally distraught, seeding trauma that would last generations. I was to tell their story but doing so didn't seem to make any difference. Was I actually just here for my own gratification—an adrenaline boost with which I could one day open a memoir?

I had wanted to impact the world, whatever that meant, but I could have done that in a more sophisticated way. And I'd chosen Venezuela on a whim. The foreign correspondent's destination, I'd later realize, is often a playground for the ego.

My mind wandered. I held no anger or resentment to either protesters or authorities, even when their ire turned on me. Nor did I hold anger or resentment towards the Venezuelan soldiers who had detained me a year earlier at the Colombian border, nor to Egyptian military intelligence who had detained me four years earlier at the Suez Canal and held me at a torture site. I was good at being an impartial observer, not taking sides or becoming emotionally invested; that made me a better reporter.

What angered me was the industry for which I was doing this—to which I was certainly not an impartial observer. I was tired of gross mismanagement, exaggeration, and fabrication by its most respected news outlets, and wild egos which trumped truth. I'd just returned from a disastrous trip to Iraq, what had meant to be my next move, where I'd found leadership to be non-existent. I'd felt betrayed too often. And here I was, being smacked around on a street corner while the editors from whom I sought support ignored my emails—too busy, I imagined, sipping cocktails at New York award ceremonies—and my family back home wondered what I was doing with my life.

After some twenty minutes, I reunited with Jhon behind the soldiers as they pushed forward, and we rode his bike through side streets to join the protesters. I got my photos, quotes, and recorded a TV piece before spending a relaxed evening with my girlfriend in our offensively cheap four-story penthouse. We watched macaws fly over Caracas as the warm sun set behind the Ávila mountain.

It was beautiful and thrilling. But something wasn't right.