Scott Smith, a correspondent for The Associated Press who traveled across Venezuela to document personal stories of desperation and hope in the troubled country, has died. He was 50.
By The Herald – By Joshua Goodman
Aug 21, 2021
Smith was diagnosed in February with brain cancer and was evacuated from the capital, Caracas, in a rare show of cooperation between the U.S. and Venezuelan governments amid the coronavirus pandemic and a strict American ban on all flights to the country in place since 2019.
He died Thursday at Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, his family said.
Smith arrived in Caracas in 2017 amid a wave of deadly anti-government unrest spurred in part by growing pressure from the Trump administration, which was seeking to force President Nicolás Maduro from power.
Smith’s easygoing demeanor, boundless curiosity and immense pride at being a foreign correspondent won him the trust and respect of government supporters and opponents alike.
“Even while sick, he was asking when he could go back to Caracas or what his onward assignment might be elsewhere in the world once better,’’ said Ian Phillips, AP’s head of international news.
Smith looked through the polarizing rhetoric of Venezuela’s political crisis and gave voice to all he encountered: oil-covered fishermen eking out a hellacious existence in a polluted lake, street gangsters hurt by the rising price of bullets or the families of victims of a fire at an overcrowded prison.
He also eschewed facile explanations for the nation’s woes.
“He used to joke that a small-town kid who showed steers at the county fair wasn’t supposed to be a foreign correspondent writing the first draft of history,” said Kelly Scott, his sister. “He never took himself too seriously.”
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