Austin Counts

Austin Alexander Counts is an Arizona-based multimedia journalist and documentary filmmaker who has spent the majority of his career covering issues along the Arizona - Sonora border. What started as an opportunity for Counts to sell an article about migrant trails to Zocalo Magazine in 2009 - while studying journalism at the University of Arizona - has turned into Counts' vigor for reporting and documenting various aspects of border life in southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. By 2010, Counts directed, edited and produced the award winning student documentary "Another Side of the Border", which focuses on newsworthy border issues that differ from hot button topics like illegal immigration and drug-smuggling. Counts was also selected to work as a multimedia apprentice for the Arizona Daily Star, and served as the executive producer on the student-produced news show, Arizona Cats Eye, for PBS/KUAT 6. After graduating from the U of A in 2011, Counts began reporting for the Nogales International on the U.S. -Mexico border. During that time, he covered stories ranging from law enforcement officers accused of drug trafficking to Nogales' struggling economy feeling the effects of a post 9/11 border. The experience Counts gained from the Nogales International has proven to be invaluable in his development as a journalist. In addition, Counts worked as a field correspondent for Vocativ.com, a online start-up news site, based in New York City. He was responsible for producing multimedia stories that focused on life between southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. From midnight cab rides through Nogales, Sonora streets to maintaining illegal water stations for traveling migrants on tribal lands, Counts brings the stories rarely told outside of the southwestern borderlands to a global audience. Most recently, Counts wrapped up production on his second documentary, Dead in the Desert, that follows the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office as they work to repatriate the bodies to two migrants found in the Sonoran Desert. Dead in the Desert has been submitted to numerous national and international film festivals to bring the issue of migrant death in the Sonoran Desert to the forefront of national/international dialogue. Counts lives in Tucson, Ariz. with his wife, Leila, and newborn son, Alexander.