Telling Stories, Together

By Walker Livingston

It’s cliché, but teamwork really does make the dream work. Now that spring break is in the rear-view, I’m putting the final polishes on my written story, and we’ve been back from Buenos Aires for almost a month, I’m struck by how inherently collaborative good journalism should be.

My story team focused on migration, specifically how generational distrust in the Argentinian economy has led to younger people leaving the country, and in turn fracturing family units. As the reporter, I did a lot of research. Interviews, books on South American history and regime, oral histories, documentaries, and even just consuming music and media. But, I didn’t research alone. When our class was assigned partner students from Universidad Catolíca Argentina (UCA), I reached out to one of our students, Clara.

She was amazing, and on-top of everything. She helped me co-ordinate interviews with policy experts and individuals who had experiences migrating. And she was hilarious, too. What were initially short WhatsApp messages about story angles and different possibilities turned into voice memos about how we both worked in radio, and places that she was excited to show me and my story team when we touched down in Buenos Aires. It didn’t stop when we got there, she taught me how to lose my natural air of awkwardness when hugging people that I meet them (the Argentinian way), we gushed about the type of stories we wanted to write, and she taught us all so much—and showed us all of the best places to eat and have fun in our limited, but well-utilized free time.

She accompanied our team videographers, Dylan and Pasquale, and I, on our longer voyage to interview our story subject, Sofia, an 88-year old Argentinian woman with 11 children and 34 grandchildren spread across the globe. The story took more of a form of an oral history, with Sofia and her son recounting their lives, and Dylan, Pasquale, and I, interjecting to ask questions. It felt like a mutual conversation, not an exchange where I was just getting the material needed to write my story.

Clara also shared with me her dreams of going abroad, and leaving Argentina, but she still planned to come back. Her presence made our story so much more real. Sharing ideas with her, and just experiencing her willingness to let our group into her home, her life, and her city, made my story and my passion for this work exciting to me.

Clara, her friend who is also named Clara, Grace, Quincy, and I on our last night in Buenos Aires.

Our week in Buenos Aires feels simultaneously like yesterday and a million years ago. As we get closer to the end of our project, I’m still letting her in on my editorial choices, how grateful I am to have her as a producer, and that I miss how much we laughed in such a short time together. I hope our paths cross again.

It would have been impossible, miserable, even, to do this project alone. I’m so grateful for the community that this class, my group and I cultivated during our short week in Buenos Aires, and I’m so excited to see the final project!