Q & A with Austin Meyer, 2015 Win-a-Trip Winner

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Nicholas Kristof and Austin Meyer in a rural village near Lucknow, India.Credit

Austin Meyer was Nicholas Kristof’s 2015 win-a-trip winner, and he traveled first to Baltimore, where he wrote about heroin use, and later to rural India and Nepal, where he wrote about malnutrition and cataract surgery. For students applying this year, and those curious about what it’s like to travel with Nick, Austin has answers. (Speaking of which, if you’re a student with a U.S. passport studying at a U.S. university and want to apply for his 2016 trip, here are the details.)

Liriel Higa: Austin, there were hundreds of applications, many of them excellent. It was hard to pick a winner! For those applying this year, any words of advice?

Austin Meyer: The way I approached my application was I focused on three different things. First, I wanted to show Nick who I am as a person. He has to travel with the winner for multiple weeks. So  in my video I wanted to demonstrate a range of things I am passionate about and show my personality. Second, I wanted to illustrate how driven I am as a journalist — that I love telling stories of people in the world who are too often neglected. And third, I focused a lot of my essay on demonstrating why I wanted to go to rural Africa or India. Everyone would like to write for the New York Times… sure. But why do you want to tell stories about human rights abuses in the developing world? That’s not for everyone.

LH: For interested applicants, I would also note that Austin submitted an essay and a video. The best applications tended to be ones that showed comfort on more than just one platform — print, video, and also social media. And I would be remiss if I didn’t lavish praise on the Center for Global Development, which helps to sift through the applications and whittle them down to the most promising ones. But back to your answer. I’m curious: Was this your first time traveling to and reporting on stories in areas that are often neglected?

AM: I have always tried to report on narratives that are often ignored. In my master’s year at Stanford I did stories on gentrification, people bringing fresh produce into food deserts, and a video feature looking back at the abuse a Stanford field goal kicker took after missing a kick in a BCS football game. But none of those compared even remotely to the stories I was telling on my win-a-trip journey. Heroin addiction, human trafficking, malnutrition… These are topics where, because they are ignored, lives are being lost all the time. I had never reported on topics of such critical importance.

LH: You mentioned in your application essay that you wanted to have your heart broken. Did that happen? Journalists have to maintain a balance between empathy for their subjects and objectivity. Is this something you grappled with during your trip?

AM: Great question. I did have my heart broken. Over and over again. But instead of repressing those emotions, I let them fuel my writing. I don’t think that heartbreak is inherently a barrier to objective reporting. I was always listening to my heart. I let that emotion guide my questions and observations. Like in my piece Surviving The Night, about a 5-month-old baby who almost died for lack of medical care, heartbreak was what drove me to the hospital that night to check on the child and his parents. I went to the hospital in town without Nick. I just had to see it. And I think being there that night really added a valuable layer to the story. But I think letting myself be so emotionally vulnerable on the trip has made it tough to stay present back in the U.S.

LH: The environments you visited were obviously very different than from the United States, in particular Palo Alto, where you’re living now. But could you see any similarities?

AM: First of all, the countryside in India is just gorgeous. And the Nepal mountains at night? These little lights dot the darkness of incredible mountain peaks. So cool. Everything was very different than home. But I ran into so many little moments that made me feel such a connection with the people of India and Nepal. Like the nervous laughter from children when Nick would try to gauge their academic abilities by giving them a simple pop quiz math problem on a piece of paper. Or when the nutritionist we were with measured a baby’s arm to check if she was malnourished. The baby was scared and confused. After the nutritionist removed the tape measure, the baby just turned straight to her mother, and gave her a big hug. It was just beautiful. And so universally human.

LH: Speaking of India, getting your visa to visit there was a bit of white knuckle ordeal. As I recall, it was only approved a day or two before your departure, and it required various phone calls, stalking a FedEx truck, and a trip to their office. For awhile, it looked like you might be going to another region of the world entirely. Any other white knuckle moments when you were on the ground?

AM: Ha ha, that was wild. Shout out to San Francisco’s FedEx for hooking me up with less than 24 hours to go. On one of our last nights in Kathmandu, Nick and I went to a district that was the center of the illegal sex trade in Nepal. We had been reporting on human trafficking that day and Nick wanted to get a sense of whether underage girls could be seen soliciting sex in this district. A sketchy guy ended up escorting us into a “dance bar” where two girls immediately came to our sides and took us to a booth to watch the dancing. My undercover conversation topics of “Where are you from?” and “What are you studying?” seemed a little out of place. When I was served a beer, I was fake drinking it because I don’t drink alcohol. So I would put this beer to my lips and for 10 minutes the volume in the glass didn’t go down. Smooth, Austin. Finally, Nick faked that he received a phone call from you and said we had to go. #StandardEveningWithNick

LH: (Note to lawyers: Austin is over 21!) That’s hilarious. That sounds like the excuse you make to end a bad date. “Emergency back at home. Gotta go!”

AM: Nick was a great date.

LH: I’m sure Sheryl WuDunn would agree.

AM: Sheryl, if you’re reading this, don’t worry… I kept an eye on Nick for you.

LH: Ha! Nick is actually a total romantic with eyes only for Sheryl. But we seemed to have veered off topic a bit. I wanted to talk to you a bit about the role that locals played in helping you and Nick. Fixers and translators often get little recognition, but can be essential in getting a story. In your case, Vikram Singh shot video, but also did some scouting in India beforehand. How helpful were he and other locals in helping you navigate the language and customs?

AM: I can’t say enough about the great work that Vikram and the other locals did to make our reporting trip as efficient and successful as possible. Vikram scouted out villages, he translated, and was an amazingly diligent videographer. For example, he worked with locals like Madhavi Kuckreja, a longtime women’s activist in Lucknow, to bring the horrifying story of Bitiya to our attention. In India we also traveled with two senior level nutritionists from the Gates Foundation. One spoke Hindi, which was fantastic. That meant that I could occasionally venture away from Nick and report my own stories with a second translator. Without the two translators, I never would have been able to report the malnutrition story of Shanvi and Mishty, because Nick was in town shooting video with Vikram at the time.

LH: I’d love to know more about what a typical day looked like when you were traveling, though I realize you were on the go all the time, so “typical” is a bit of a misnomer. What time did you get up? Did you spend all day reporting, then the evening writing?

AM: In India, we would usually wake up at about 7 a.m., get a quick breakfast at the hotel, and then spend about two hours in vans driving out to rural villages. We spent all day reporting, wandering through villages and asking questions until dark. Even when we were back at the hotel for a late dinner, Nick would have his computer out taking notes. In Baltimore, he would interview health commissioner Leana Wen over dinner each night. He is always reporting! But back in India, I really wanted to challenge myself to write every night. I wanted to squeeze as much out of the trip as possible. So I stayed up really late writing. However, by about day five I got sick because I was so sleep deprived. So I had to let myself relax, try to stay in the moment instead of constantly worrying about output, and write only when my mind was fresh. That is why I ended up doing some stories when I returned to the US.

LH: The photo essay you did about Dr. Ruit and Dr. Tabin’s cataract surgeries once you returned from the Nepal was great, though the story about Shanvi and Mishty was probably my favorite.

Someone I spoke with wanted to know whether Nick would write you a recommendation. I’m going to answer that, and throw it back to you. Nick would be happy to write you a recommendation, but the joke at The Times is that the first place winner gets one trip with Nick, and the second place winner gets two trips (because traveling with him is the least glamorous type of travel you can do). Would you recommend traveling with Nick? And for those who aren’t lucky (or unlucky) enough to get to travel with him, what’s your advice for how they can create their own adventure?

AM: This type of adventure is not going to be for everyone. I would tell those people who want to apply just to get a byline in The Times, don’t, because this opportunity is about so much more than that. For me, this trip was life changing. As I will detail more in an upcoming column, this trip changed not only how I see the world around me, but also how I see myself, and what my calling is. For everyone who is like I was last year — feeling like you’re at a crossroads in life, wanting to turn towards suffering to see how that changes your perspective, and determined to use stories to change the world, then I can’t recommend applying highly enough. And for all those who apply and don’t win, take a day to be upset. Then wake up the next morning and take things into your own hands. Award yourself a win-a-trip. Get out of your comfort zone. Tell stories. Create change.