Macarena Vidal Liy

Correspondent, El País

Macarena’s favorite hobby? To collect datelines.

It started in the chaos of 1990 and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when a young trainee was told to pack a bag and travel that night to Cyprus, back then EFE’s (that great Spanish newswire) headquarters in the Middle East. The invasion turned into a war. What was supposed to be a 15-day assignment turned into a coverage of months – and the discovery of a passion: to report the world. There would follow different assignments in the Middle East and Sarajevo during the Bosnian war.

Then came London, where sources speak in layers, and Washington, where they speak in leaks. She learned both dialects fluently, back during the Blair years and at both George W Bush’s and Barack Obama’s White House. Next stop was China, where sources speak in whispers (and mostly between the lines) – a whole decade in the Indo-Pacific region watching the 21st century being assembled in real time, and telling its stories for El País, Spain’s paper for record.

Since 2022, Macarena has been back in the US, again as a White House correspondent, again fixated on foreign policy, now for El País. The dateline these days is Washington DC. But it may also be Butler, Pennsylvania. Or Dearborn, Michigan. Or Austin, Texas. The bag, as in 1990, is always ready to be packed and go.