My story on the Saudi-led war in Yemen in Rolling Stone, which I reported with Sebastiano Tomada Piccolomini, has been nominated for a National Magazine Award. It's an honor to be a finalist alongside so many other talented journalists. Sadly, a few days later, we learned that the Yemeni journalist Almigdad Mojalli was killed by a Saudi-coalition airstrike, while investigating another such bombing that had caused civilian casualties. Almigdad was a tireless chronicler of his country's unjust suffering and had offered helpful advice to me in the course of a very difficult story. We get laurels, they get bombs--likely American-made, in this case. As foreign correspondents, we owe local journalists and fixers a debt of blood.
I also want to thank my friends Mohammed Ali Kalfood, Saif Saleh Al-Oliby, and Essam Sanabani, the local journalists who worked with us in Yemen, along with Maan Vantae Tijani Yai, who helped us embark on our voyage in Djibouti. We're also indebted to Hussain Al Bukhaiti for getting us to Saada and back safely. And of course, we couldn't have done it without the ace team at Rolling Stone, Elisabeth Garber-Paul, Sean Woods, and the now-departed Will Dana.