Alex Boyd on journalistic responsibilities when reporting abroad

Podcast art by Katelyn Curtis

In the fifth episode of this season’s Pull Quotes, we spoke with Toronto Star reporter Alex Boyd about her recent three-part digital series, “Fighting for a Shot,” looking at the global vaccine rollout for COVID-19 and how it left some countries behind.

This season’s podcast takes you behind the scenes of Canada’s top long-form stories. In this episode, Boyd talks about how she reported the story, following a shipment of donated AstraZeneca vaccines from the runway of an Angolan airport, to a stadium where they were vaccinated by the public.

“My job is to be impartial in my process and interrogate both of those arguments and present them both, or look at them fairly and investigate them fairly.”

Alex Boyd

In the discussion, she talks about how she had two days’ notice to travel to Angola, how she decided to pick historical examples, and her voice in reporting the story: “My job is to be impartial in my process and interrogate both of those arguments and present them both, or look at them fairly and investigate them fairly.”

She touches on how she worked with the graphics team at The Star, and the role her translator played while she was there. She speaks on the importance of the James Travers Fellowship for this feature, which funded her trip to Africa, and the types of stories she hopes to tell in the future.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Credits: 

Andrew Oliphant, guest host and producer

Gabe Oatley, editor and co-host

Rahaf Farawi, producer 

Annika Forman, guest producer

Geena Mortfield, fact checker

Sonya Fatah, executive producer