“Often, I'm spending months with a person in a very intimate context, getting to know the ins and outs of what they ate for breakfast, not to mention dredging up the most traumatic experiences of their lives, digging through their documents and photographs from difficult times, all of that. And that process, I think, can be extraordinarily strange for subjects who've never been interviewed before, especially if you don't acquaint them from the get-go with what you're trying to do, what it entails, and why you care.” IfsThinkingKnowsTryingPersonsCareProcessDifficultSubjectsStrangeMonthsPhotographSpendingIntimateBreakfastDocumentsDifficult TimesDiggingTraumatic ExperiencesDredging Author:Sarah Stillman
“I found it really astonishing that undocumented migrants were kidnapped so routinely, that it was such a commonplace part of the journey for people trying to reach the US, and that we hear almost nothing about it here.” PeopleTryingFoundJourneyAstonishingCommonplaceMigrantsKidnapped Author:Sarah Stillman
“I try to come to my reporting as a real, whole person, not an automaton.” TryingPersonsRealWholeWhole Person Author:Sarah Stillman
“I try to come to my reporting as a real, whole person, not an automaton. And it's always one of the strange discomforts of the job, that you're in this very intense moment in someone's life - you're engaging with them nonstop - and then suddenly your piece is out and that's done. It always reminds me that the journalist's job isn't to be someone's friend, or their psychologist, or anything other than what we actually are. And at the end of the day, that can definitely seem like such a strange, extractive relationship.” TryingRealDoneMomentsStrangeIntensePsychologist Author:Sarah Stillman
