The Argentimes, a free newspaper that "aspires to give a voice to those who are ignored."

 “Time will reveal everything. It is a babbler, and speaks even when not asked.”
                                                                                     --Euripides--

“It’s hard to believe that after only ten (slightly debauched) weeks in Argentina we have launched our first editionof the Argentimes,” say editor-publishers Lucy Cousins and Kristie Robinson. “When we first made our decision to move out here—over cocktails in London a year ago—we never envisaged we would find such enthusiasm and support for our project.”

Lucy is from Australia, Kristie from the United Kingdom. Their journalistic paths crossed in Bolivia, where they also experienced the thrill of setting up an English language paper. Lucy had been doing travel journalism for Condé Nast Traveller Magazine, while Kristie had been free lancing and doing press activity for CAFOD, an international development charity.

“With more and more newspapers falling into fewer and fewer hands, many mainstream papers have become vehicles for consumerism rather than addressing issues of social importance,” twenty seven year old Kristie explains. “In response to this THE ARGENTIMES aspires to vie a voice to thosw sho are ignored by large publications so that their views can be heard, and their stories told.”

The two editors recently met with this reporter in a San Telmo bar to talk about their experiences and expectations. The TV screeched and groaned with a world cup soccer match and the waiter was late to come, but once his he managed to take his eyes off the tube brought some steaming coffee. That served as an “ice” breaker.

“How’s your coffee?”
“Fine, just fine,” said Kristie, who lives nearby. “It’s always fine here.”
“But I image it tastes differently from coffee in London...”
“Perhaps. I love coffee in London. It’s just that it tastes different here, that’s all I can say.”
“Well...let’s go from coffee to ‘The Argentimes,’ which I understand is targeted towards youthful readers.”
“Yes indeed! said Lucy. Kristie and I met in Bolivia three years ago. We were working on an English language newspaper there, a very hands on project. Later, after travelling, we met up again in London.”
“How did the ‘Argentimes’ get started?”
“Well..” Kristie exchanged glances with Lucy and then explained: “we were not exactly dissatisfied with our careers in London. It was just that we felt like cogs in a big machine. And in talking together we realized we didn’t have the kind of job satisfaction we had had in Bolivia, getting out a newspaper from start to finish, involving every aspect, making decisions, not exercising power but having some influence on our readers. So there we were, talking over cocktails in London. Actually, moaning and groaning. That was about a year ago to this day. So we just kind of said: ‘well, we’re not really happy with what we are doing...why not try Latin America.’ The idea just appeared. I don’t really know how. And we thought of Argentina because we’d both been to the country separately and loved it. Furthermore, there wasn’t anything around like what we had in mind. ‘Time Out’, the ‘Buenos Aires Herald’ but nothing in between.”
“So you said: ‘Hey! Let’s set up a newspaper!’”
“That happened about a week after talking about the idea,” Lucy put in, “and just mentioning it around in almost no time we had a graphic designer...things seemed to be charging forward. And then when we came here everything seemed to fall in our laps.”
Kristie took a last sip of coffee and then reaffirmed her companion’s statement. “Yea, that’s right the ball had started rolling and we couldn’t stop it. And free! It’s a free newspaper, backed up by advertisements but free and will remain free.”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” suggested the reporter.
“Quite a lot of work,” said Lucy. “Actually, we didn’t think we would get any ads for our first edition but we did. That was a very good start.”
“You see, we’ve been doing a lot of leg work,” explained Kristie, “contacting people, preparing press releases, having coffee, chatting with people, visiting language schools. We’ve found that people really love the idea, especially young people, not just tourists passing through, but young people...we’ve gotten around 50 e-mail responses, mainly from Argentines saying things like ‘I’m trying to lear English. Where can I get a copy?"
“Do you only print the newspaper or do you also put it online?”
“We always wanted a printed version rather than a wb site,” responded Kristie. “You’ve got endless resources on the net, sites for people who travel through a country, anything you want. But we thought it would be better to offer something tangible to read on a bus, in a bar, something different.”
Lucy arranged her curly bangs while adding: “Of course we will eventually put post it on internet so people from other countries can see it. But what interests us is to have it in printed form, to read it, pass it on to someone else.”
“What kind of feedback have you received after the first edition?”
“It has really been crazy,” was Kristie’s response. “We talk with people and the paper grows, really amazing. People say things like: ‘thank you for coming to Argentina!’”
Lucy: “I received an e-mail from a friend today. He’s in Canada and has a friend who has just returned to Argentina with the Argentimes. I don’t know how that happened. But its fantastic. People love it and its free and enables people to practive English.”
“Can you keep it going just with advertisements?”
“It’s basically young people we want to reach and they respond very well. They want to connect up with each other and that is a way of getting the paper known. If we make it attractive for young people, the rest will follow,” said Lucy.
“But do you think you can keep it free?”
“Certainly,” answered Kristie. “We have tripled our ads between the first and 2nd edition so it is logical to suppose that by the 4th or 5th we might even break even. Our fund raising campaign was also important. We raised enough to sustain the paper for the first few editions. We are not backed by anyone, we have no sponsor, we are independent. We operate for the time being with the money raised in the campaign, plus money from our own pockets. Many of the articles are contributed by Argentines.”
“You don’t pay for the articles you publish?”
“We do have a team consisting of myself (Kristie) and Lucy, a staff writer and two interns and Amy Wallace, from Ireland, who has been an integral part of the design team at the Dublin based agency ‘Originate Design’ for the past two years. Lucy and I do most of the news round ups. We try to include at least one importante article in each edition. Then we’ve got columnists who contribute freely, travel pieces, things of that sort.”
“Do you edit the material contributed by Argentines?”
“Yes we do,” said Kristie, “but not everything. I really like to include things where the writer has perhaps not used the right word but it makes sense. We only edit to make sure the idea is understood.”
Lucy: “We like the fact that there are many different voices. As soon as the idea of the paper was born we said we’d love Argentines to write for us. We didn’t want to put ourselves in the position of talking about Argentina; rather we wanted Argentines to do so. Furthermore, there are ideas that we never would have imagined writing about, things we know nothing about in view of our short stay here (three months).”
“How do you perceive the news market in Argentina compared to that in England and Australia?”
Lucy answered first: “I think it is quite difficult to answer that in view of the fact that we seem to be the only ones doing this kind of newspaper. The way others produce the news here in any event is not really relevant to what we do, so we have nothing to compare to.”
Kristie: “And also the news in our publication is not really news. By the second day of publication it becomes completely out of date. The news element is just a round up, stories that we consider important to our readers, commentaries on the news rather than origianl pieces of journalistic work.”
“Are there many alternative newspapers or magazines in England and Australia?”
“There are in fact quite a few alternative publications. One is called ‘Balk’ and is directed towards young people. It also takes a stand on the war in Irak because the paper feels that there has been little reflection in the mass media of what young people feel about the war.”
Lucy added: “We meet every second Thursday with a large group of Argentines to talk about the news and politics and one thing that strikes me is that there is a lot of passion involved in politics here. We don’t see that in Australia. I suppose people read the mass media papers to get their opinions but here they discuss over coffee, walking down the street...politics is alive here. Everyone wants to have an opinion and they do.”
“Do you agree Kristie?”
“Yes. It is refreshing compared to what happens in the U.K. People actually do read and discuss politics here. Perhaps it is because the crisis here is more recent but it seems to me to be more a part of the way of life here and I love that about Argentina.”
“What do you think about Argentina in general?”
Lucy: “Argentina is a beautiful country with spectacular scenery and many places of interest to visit. By becoming the in-country resource for travellers—with the most up-to-date travel advice and recommendations available—and encouraging eco-tourism in diverse parts of the country, THE ARGENTINES aims to help boost the local economy throughout the country, while giving travellers a unique experience.”
Kristie: “I love being here and I love the Argentine spirit. It is a fantastic city, with its bars and restaurants and really great people. Argentina has everything you could possibly want. It is all new to me. Living here and making friends has been much easier than I had expected. I had an idea about what things were like before coming but what has impressed me is the people, how friendly and cooperative they are.”
“Do you have any last comments for your readers?”
“What is of most value to us is to receive people’s feedback,” said Lucy with a broad smile. Kristie put the finishing touch: “If someone picks up the newspaper and likes it, why not let us know? The way to keep grounded is to hear what people think.”

The Argentimes contacts:
Web: http://www.theargentimes.com
Email: [e-mail]