“You have to push back the masses, part those clamoring to talk, to go to the back — and that’s where you’ll find the women.”

Quist-Arcton talked about the rewards of making the effort to capture the diverse viewpoints offered by local women, who may be caught up in cooking or commerce or childcare. “They have to work and they have families to provide for. They don’t have time to rush up to reporters, but they know what’s going on,” she said.

The effort may be as simple as spending a few hours in an area or exchanging small talk before an interview. In the field, she said, she often focuses on market women, even just to chat about clothes or jewelry. Meeting interview subjects for the first time, she’ll take a few moments to inquire after their families — to ask questions that don’t immediately relate to the assignment and to show empathy with their situations.

“It makes such a difference when you have met the person with whom you are talking,” she said. “Some of the examples that have stayed with me — I gravitate toward them because there are so many untold stories.”

As an example, she detailed her reporting on the Boko Haram kidnapping of 110 schoolgirls in the Nigerian town of Dapchi in February. A month later, 104 of the girls were released (five had died), and that development was the banner headline.

But Quist-Arcton found another story, that of the last girl, 15-year-old Leah Sharibu. One of the few Christian girls at the majority Muslim school, Leah had refused to renounce her religion and had not been released with her surviving classmates. Quist-Arcton was there and was able to get Leah’s mother to open up for an intimate and heart-rending story. They key, she said, was to “take the time to talk. You will make contacts that prove invaluable,” she said. Leah remains in captivity, and Quist-Arcton is still in touch with her parents.

“If you give people time to get to know you, even for a day, people get more comfortable and hopefully they can trust you,” she said. “We owe it to such people who are sharing such intimate, difficult details to give them such compassion.”