Emma-at-Large

The reporter's notebook of journalist Emma Jacobs, normally sharing things about migration, identity and immigrant communities, currently deep into an illustrated book about Paris.

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Blown away by this seven-minute video from the Paris Exposition of 1900.

Here’s the summary from the British Pathe archives:

Exhibition buildings shot from the canal / river and crowds arriving. Crowds walking around the Paris Exhibition and travelling on the travolator (moving walkway) and overhead metro line. Exhibition with Eiffel tower in midst of buildings. Large Ferris wheel in background. Troupe of Cossack dancers giving display on small stage.        

You can also view every frame as a still image.

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17th century watercolor by Louis Boudan. The BNF has hundreds of his images viewable online.

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My photos from the depot of the French National Archives, which opened to visitors for Nuit des Musees (Museum Night) this past weekend. It holds records going back over a thousand years from churches (documents acquired during the French Revolution), French royal families and the French state.

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These pictures show the transfer of Napoleon’s Imperial barge from Brest to Paris in 1943. Transferred across occupied France by train, its move to new naval museum opening in the capital saved the elaborately decorated vessel from the bombardment of the port city during World War II.

Via Actu.fr

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One of the photographs taking during Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed expedition to Antarctica. This sled dog may have been posed to reproduce the famous image of Nipper listening to “his master’s voice” used by the Gramophone company. Perhaps the company was even a sponsor of the trip. 

I’ve gone deeply down the rabbit hole with these photos taken by the expedition photographer Herbert Ponting and they are endlessly fascinating.

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Proving the debate about whether women who can have it all goes back to at least 1903, here’s an imagine conversation between two women (written by a man), one of whom works and the other who does not.

Another find from the archives of The New York Times.

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A study in stripes from Cat Seto’s book, Impressions of Paris: An Artist’s Sketchbook.

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I’m working on a project right now that has me spending a lot of time in the archives and less time on reporting so I’m shifting the focus here to share more of the great things I’m stumbling across. For a taste of what’s to come, here’s an ad that appeared in The New York Times in August of 1903.

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I love this neat and inclusive feature at the bottom of article pages of The Houston Chronicle’s mobile site to make their reporting accessible to more readers.

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In strong demand, France’s collection of art and artifacts illustrating the impact of new arrivals celebrates its 10th anniversary.

Image: Exterior of the Palais Dorée on the eastern edge of Paris, home to France’s National Museum of the History of Immigration.

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I haven’t been very consistent at updating this recently but I just wanted to note you can follow my work on Instagram, @emma.sketches, where some of what I share is intermittently related to my reporting. 

This mother and child image is actually from a couple of years ago, at a meeting in South Philadelphia around the time the city was debating measures to limit police cooperation with ICE detainers for individuals in police custody. Representatives of the local police precinct met with community members in a church basement to answer questions and encourage people to report crimes to police, with assurances they would not face immigration repercussions.

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This is a recent episode of Undone from Gimlet Media. Here’s their summary:

“Ibrahim Parlak came to the U.S. in 1991 as Kurdish refugee; his friends and neighbors see him as the ideal American immigrant. But the U.S. government considers him “the complete terrorist package” and has been trying to deport him for over a decade. We try to figure out why they see him so differently.”

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Reporting in Calais

I was up in Calais, France last week, with many, many other journalists (reportedly 48 from the BBC alone), following the process of the clearing of the migrant encampment that has existed for years. It’s largely full of people living rough while looking for a way to reach the UK through the Port of Calais. (I produced this piece for APM’s Marketplace.)

Le Monde published an excellent think piece last week on the complicated ethics of reporting on sensitive issues in such a heavily mediatized setting that is just essential reading. I would highly highly recommend to anyone with basic French reading comprehension and an interest in media ethics and/or the events in Calais. An excerpt below, with translation:

« D’ordinaire, l’entretien avec un migrant est un échange autant qu’une interview, ajoute Maryline Baumard, qui aimait jusqu’alors prendre le temps de partager un thé, autour du feu, quand elle venait à Calais les rencontrer. Il existe comme un code qui veut que les journalistes qui suivent la rubrique “migrations” donnent autant qu’ils prennent : ils nous donnent leur histoire, nous racontent de l’intime ; nous en face, leur devons de l’information, ce bien si précieux pour eux. Souvent, ils connaissent mal le droit, ont besoin de savoir ce qu’on a vu dans d’autres reportages, dans d’autres villes… » Un donnant-donnant impossible à installer pour les très nombreux journalistes « généralistes » envoyés à Calais : rares sont les médias qui ont, comme Le Monde ou l’AFP, des reporters spécialistes.

Rough translation: “Ordinarily, the interview with a migrant is an exchange as much as an interview,” adds Maryline Baumard, who has up till now liked to spend the time to share a tea around a fire when she comes to Callais to meet them. ”There is a code that journalists who cover the “migration” beat give as well as take: they give us their history, speaking intimately; we, in return, give them information, which is precious to them. Often, they have a poor understanding of the law, need to know what we’ve seen in other stories, in other cities...” A give and take impossible for large numbers of “generalist” journalists sent to Calais: rare are media who have, like Le Monde or AFP [Agence France Presse], specialized reporters.

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France recently announced plans to dismantle the refugee encampment in Calais, France, estimated to house around 9,000 people. The New Republic ran this illustrated essay about the camp, nicknamed “The Jungle,” by Peter Wieben, last August.

Another series of illustrations by a humanitarian volunteer in Greece, Ella Baron, appeared at The Guardian just this month.

This one shows a playground used by refugees in the foreground, Greek street-life taking place beyond the fence.

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Refugee reporting resources

A couple of excellent resources on interviewing and reporting stories with refugees have come across my desk recently.

- Here’s a Q and A with the organizers behind Jungala Radio, produced by refugees living in informal housing around Calais, France. One of the things Kathy O’Hare brings up is the advantage of working in an audio format:

KO: We knew that refugees felt uncomfortable showing their faces in case it affected their future asylum outcomes...People do want to express themselves, and radio is an amazingly creative medium that allows you to do that without risk of exposing your identity.

Listen to more of their work.

- A round table from the DART center includes a number of reporters who have done work on refugee crises and clinical psychologist Katy Robjant, who shared the following - in some ways it’s common sense but also runs against some common radio reporting advice you’ll get not to interrupt the emotional moments. Food for thought.

JG: Are there signs of traumatisation that journalists can look out for when doing an interview?

KR: Signs of emotional distress can be quite obvious. If they start to cry, if their breathing quickens, or if you notice they’re looking at the door or around the room, it might be a sign that they don’t feel safe. Or that what you are talking about is reminding them of the trauma in a negative way. You have to take a step back and ask them if they are okay to continue the interview, or if you can do anything to make them feel safer.

If your interviewee starts to complain that they’re feeling very hot for no reason, or if they are zoning out and stop responding to your questions, that may be a sign that they are dissociating. So the best thing to do is to quickly try to reorient them. Keep talking. Ask things about the here and now such as, “Can you tell me where you are? Can you describe what the room looks like?” Those kinds of questions will be more helpful than general questions like, “Are you ok?”

- Sherry Richiardi writes for IJNET, recalling experiences working in Kosovo and pointing to a number of other reports and resources on covering trauma.

- Maria Sachetti talked about covering the European refugee crisis at the Shorenstein Center.

- I’d also point back to the audio I posted of Ben Rawlence’s talk on writing his book City of Thorns about the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, during which he talks about his reporting process, including paying his interviewees for their participation in the book project.

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The city of Paris has started construction on a pair of urban refugee camps, which will provide modular shelters for more than 1,000 people.  The city hopes the project, announced by Mayor Anne Hidalgo in May, will help to eliminate tent cities that have emerged in public spaces throughout Paris.

The city's plans were news to Afghan refugee Sami Achakzai but he could attest to the need. He had come to Paris three weeks before, after confronting anti-immigrant sentiment in Germany. Since his arrival, he has slept under elevated metro tracks. He’s struggled to access daily essentials, like a place to wash.

“It is now two and a half weeks that I [haven’t] taken bath,” he said. “When I go to the public shower they don’t give me permission to enter. They tell me you don’t have shampoo or you don’t have a towel. I say I don’t have anything. I’m a refugee.”

The new city-constructed refugee camps—or “welcome centers” will provide shelter and showers. One will be for single men like Achakzai, the other for women and children.

The full story I reported for Marketplace can be found here. 

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Exile places one at an oblique angle to one's new world and makes every emigrant, willy-nilly, into and anthropologist and relativist; for to have a deep experience of two cultures is to know that no culture is absolute--it is to discover that even the most interstitial and seemingly natural aspects of our identities and social reality are constructed rather than given and that they could be arranged, shaped, articulated in quite another way.

André Aciman in Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss

I really do love this essay. This is the book it’s from.