Q&A With Foreign Correspondent Moises Ávila Roldán

By Olivia Garcia, Account Coordinator at SBS Comms

As National Hispanic Heritage Month came to a close, SBS caught up with foreign correspondent Moises Ávila Roldán, who shared his experience reporting across Latin America and the Caribbean on everything from the economy to natural disasters and the migrant experience. He’s an award-winning journalist with Agence France-Presse now based in Houston, and previously was editor and reporter in Central America, Cuba, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil and his native Peru, for AFP, Reuters and national newspapers.

In this wide-ranging interview, Moises discusses how he goes about covering a new country and market every few years; his work writing about the immigrant experience in the United States; AFP’s coverage of the migrant crisis in the Americas; and how journalists will adapt to the changing demands of readers – and the role AI can play in the future of journalism.

BN: You’ve made a career of changing countries in the Americas – Peru, Chile, Brazil, Cuba and now the United States – and digging into each one. How do you get started learning about the country, its culture and economy when you arrive?

MAR: As a foreign correspondent who changes countries every three or five years, you start to understand that an important part of your job is learning how to live in your new destination. For example, in the case of Cuba, a colleague of mine used to say that 70% of your work in Havana was to live in Havana. Cuba is completely different from everything we know – from the way you buy your groceries to the way you contact sources for a story.

When you go to a new destination, of course it’s important to learn about its history, events, culture and traditions; that helps. But nothing compares to walking the country, using their public transportation, eating what they love the most, and trying to understand what they are proud of. You need to connect and talk to people to understand what’s going on and what kind of stories could be attractive.

The other important thing is being respectful. It sounds like something basic and obvious, but sometimes we forget about it. You can make the mistake of thinking that, given your experience traveling the world and writing about it, you know more than your sources, and they’re somehow obligated to answer you. You have to put away your “correspondent hero costume” and take off your sunglasses. People need to feel confident and look you directly in the eyes when you're trying to talk or conduct an interview; they must see you as a regular human being. So when you land the interview, you have to listen. 

I also think paying attention to local press, blogs, and podcasts is important. You can learn a lot from them; they have their fingers on the pulse of society and can offer details that will guide you and help you find a good angle for your story. 

I also worked in Panama and other countries in Central America and the Caribbean. They say that in the Caribbean, you can be whatever you want to be, but never a pain in the neck. You can’t just show up or call somebody asking for an immediate answer when they have their own pace and rhythm. If you insist too much, your request will go to the bottom of the pile.

BN: Your articles cover a wide range of topics from national politics to local news – which beat do you find most challenging or rewarding? How have these interests evolved throughout your career?

MAR: I started my career as a breaking news radio reporter in Lima, Peru. I think that experience gave me the tools to quickly structure my stories, easily find what news is, and report precisely and concisely. 

I’m grateful for how my career evolved. I started covering accidents on the street, gaining experience in the day-to-day before reporting from the Peruvian Congress and Government Palace, as well as traveling with presidents on official foreign visits. Then I became a national politics reporter in a newspaper.

All that experience helped me a lot when I started to work as a correspondent, first in a newspaper and then in news agencies. Being a foreign correspondent allows you to work on several subjects, from the economy to natural disasters, and tie them all together to tell a complete story. For instance, a hurricane in Texas affects lives, of course, and that’s our prime coverage and priority in a general news agency, but it also impacts oil and gas operations and that could influence prices, inflation, and markets, for example, and that story needs to be told.

They say that journalists have an ocean of knowledge that’s an inch deep. I’d argue we have a little more depth in certain areas – particularly those that we cover the most. 

Natural disasters are particularly challenging and dangerous; you have to be careful. And nowadays, it’s tough to deal with extremist movements because you don’t know how things are going to end; you’re covering people who may be confused and afraid, and obsessed with ideas that make them behave a certain way.

BN: What has surprised you about covering the immigration community in Houston?

MAR: Houston is a very diverse and cosmopolitan city. There’s a predominantly Latino community, where Mexicans are the majority, but you can find a strong presence of Asian, African, Indian, and Arabic communities. All of them are bricks that build this society.

I think that, decades ago, Latinos tried to “blend in” to avoid discrimination, and erased part of their cultural expressions – mostly with their language. For example, they sometimes didn’t allow their kids to speak Spanish. But in a state like Texas, which once belonged to Mexico and has similar cultural expressions, it’s impossible to erase their origins and ancestral manifestations. I see more people proud of being Latino and speaking Spanish as well as English in the U.S. You have multicultural and multilingual authorities in neighborhoods, cities, and within the police. 

All that said: It has been difficult to find a good Peruvian restaurant in Houston. (I was told there are good ones in New Jersey.)

BN: Congratulations on winning the Inter-American Press Association’s award for your documentary, “Nothing is Impossible: The Odyssey of a Migrant from Venezuela to the United State.” Can you tell us a little bit about your role in that story, and how it came together?

MAR: Thank you so much. AFP took advantage of the fact that reporters are deployed in almost all the countries in South, Central and North America. This plan started a few years ago when I was working in Panama. Our team traveled to Bajo Chiquito, the city where migrants arrive after they finish their transit through the Darien Gap. It’s hard because after that journey, the last thing people want to do is talk to a journalist. They are tired, afraid, hungry and hurt. It’s possible that they saw someone die. We needed to be careful and respectful.

The idea was to humanize this migration crisis because it’s usually summed up as a number or a political problem. We wanted to showcase the voice and story of those who were directly suffering; we wanted to follow a migrant and their family along their journey north to the United States.

We tried several times but, on some occasions, individuals lost their phones or had other priorities, rather than answering a journalist while they were struggling during the trip.

Finally Marcel, a Venezuelan migrant who lost his leg in an accident years ago, accepted our request. It was mid-2023 when our video journalist spoke with him. We activated all our teams to be ready to track him in Central America and Mexico. In my case, I had to be ready when he decided to cross the Rio Grande and try to register if he finally made it because, as we know, one of the options could be deportation.

One key point here is that we couldn’t interfere with his decisions for our filming purposes. For example, we couldn’t say, “Please, don’t cross today, because Moises hasn’t arrived in Brownsville yet.” That’s impossible. If he decided to cross at night (as he did), our team had to be ready.

We also asked him to film himself and his family with his cellphone during the journey and to share with us the images he wanted to share. With this approach, we respected his privacy and had still had precious moments on camera.

It helped that I had covered the border months before, because we knew the possible route he would use to surrender to the Border Patrol and where he would be taken. It was dark and the only way to identify him from the distance, in the middle of dozens of migrants that crossed with him, was to yell his name. He waved. We were behind a fence, 200 meters away. 

He was released after three days and we interviewed him in McAllen. There, he told us about his journey.

BN: Do you think those ways of telling a story – multimedia, with reporters collaborating across countries and mediums – will grow in number and popularity?

MAR: I think it’s a good alternative. People are consuming information differently. Traditional readers prefer books and maybe a long, well-written story. That’s good, but we need to adapt to new generations that are scrolling social media and swiping away the content they don’t want to see or watching short episodes via streaming. 

AI also has the power to universalize a story that could only be written in Spanish. For example, AI can translate a story into several languages with accuracy and style and without losing its spirit. This is the same with translations for videos and podcasts. This could happen soon, if it’s not happening already. We can take advantage of AI and spread our stories faster and better.

But what AI can’t do (yet) is go on the ground and talk to people, wait for the precise moment to film a situation, and have human-to-human interaction – which is pure gold for a story. AI needs raw material to create something. It can be a win-win. (I say that in case Skynet reads this interview and considers it when the moment of human extermination arrives. Apologies for my GenX reference.)