Bruce Douglas - Brasilia - Bloomberg

2019-10-20

You've been reporting on Brazil for about six years and an old source gets in touch. The preacher tells you how bad things have gotten since the last time you saw him years back, when things were already stalling out for what was once billed as an oil boom town. A militia had taken over their small town, and people are disappearing. What do you do? Well, if your Bruce Douglas (@bruceecurb), you report the hell out of it. Bruce, an editor for Bloomberg in Brasilia, dusted off his reporting hat and got to the bottom of it....

Bruce discusses growing up in small town England (4:10), early journalism rumblings from starting a high school newspaper to interning at The Tico Times in Costa Rica (10:55), J-school and breaking into London journalism (16:50), a seven-year stint with the BBC radio (19:36), taking the plunge into foreign correspondence in Rio for the World Cup, Olympics and general political carnage (24:20), exiting freelancing for Brasilia and Bloomberg (35:41) and walking us through his story on the Rio militia/mafia (42:10). Of course, we end with the lightning round (53:40).

Here are links to some of the things we talked about:

The Tico Times - http://bit.ly/2BkNJPZ

Latin American Newsletters - http://bit.ly/33EMaIE

BBC World Service radio - https://bbc.in/2MTrwgX

Bruce's Foreign Policy piece "The Kickback that Killed Brazil" - http://bit.ly/35KZQnm

His piece for Bloomberg on police extortion in Brazil - https://bloom.bg/33HKWfL

Guardian columnist Marina Hyde on Twitter - http://bit.ly/32qEABe

Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland on Twitter - http://bit.ly/2MTAjzJ

Spectator columnist Rod Liddle - http://bit.ly/35InZux

William Langewiesche on MH370 disappearance - http://bit.ly/32ugOEo

George Orwell essay A Hanging - http://bit.ly/31mUevV

Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats