DECEMBER 2025 – The WSJ beat the pants off the rest of the US press last week when Jose de Cordoba, Vera Bergengruen and Alex Leary reported on the Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s clandestine flight from her home country. In fact, the three journalists produced two pieces, both published Dec. 11, one a primary narrative about Machado’s escape, and the other largely focused on the former US combat veteran, Bryan Stern, who was contracted with private funds to aid the escape. It all reads like fiction, of course – Machado sneaks through Venezuelan checkpoints wearing disguises, and then sets off on a launch, Cuban defector-style, in the overnight darkness of the Caribbean. The 58-year-old Machado makes it to Curacao, and then on to Oslo, where she’ll be recognized as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. (She missed the ceremony, but her daughter was there to officially accept it.)
DeCordoba, now in his late 60s, is a Venezuela native who has been reporting for the WSJ since the mid 80s. He’s now based in Mexico City. And after 40 years of working in pretty much the same job, his work is infused with an authority and connection-to-valuable-sources that’s especially remarkable in rough-and-tumble Latin America. The other two reporters are much younger, and while their contributions to these pieces may be just as weighty, DeCordoba deserves special recognition.