U.S. journalists reflect on Paris as they know it
The night of terror a week ago in Paris reverberated around the world and concerns about security now dominate public discussions in many corners.
Having just visited Paris for the first time in July, the shocking news of the Nov. 20 attacks quickly took me back in time to 10 days of touring the City of Lights. I found myself wanting to share some of my reactions to the slaughter with others who know Paris. I reached out earlier this week to some long-time colleagues and newer acquaintances who have had a variety of experiences in Paris. In a series of email interviews, I asked them all similar questions related to their memories of Paris and how recent events might have affected them. I intentionally sought out journalists because I believed their reportorial instincts and analytical skills would result in thoughtful observations. I've condensed their comments below:
Janet Coats, a former newspaper reporter, executive editor and now consultant who lives in Sarasota, Fla., has visited Paris twice, most recently for a week in late September. Her first visit to Paris was in 2012, with her husband Rusty.
"Our hotel was near Notre Dame, and from the first day walking near that monumental cathedral, I was in love with Paris," she wrote.
"The cliches are true, of course - the light is different there, and the cafe culture is seductive, the art is overwhelming and the hot chocolate is divine. But I think what drew me so completely to Paris was the fact that it feels like such a small city, with each arrondissement its own community," she wrote.
"In my experience, Parisians were uniformly kind, helpful, and eager to know that we were having a good time and enjoying their city. I had expected the cliche of Parisians viewing Americans, especially those who don't speak French, with disdain and treating them with coldness. I never once had that experience in two visits there.
"So I think for me, what made me ache so for Paris this weekend is both the idea of Paris and the reality. The idea of Paris as a celebration of beauty and art and the joys of living, and the reality of Paris as a big small town, where going to a tavern a few times in a week makes you known. Paris overwhelms me with its every day examples of the best of human creativity and thought, and it overwhelms me with its intimacy and light and quietness in the midst of joyful noise. And I can't help thinking those exact qualities are part of why Paris was targeted.
"As always when it comes to Paris, Hemingway probably said it best: 'There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it,'" Coats said.
Shaun Higgins is a retired Spokesman-Review journalist and executive who resides in Spokane. He has visited Paris more than a dozen times in the past 30 years with most of those trips being business-related.
"As a former newspaper editor and long-time newspaper business executive, Paris has informed me professionally. It has been home to serious and thoughtful (as well as humorous and satirical) journalism for centuries. It has also been a center of innovation for the industry, particularly by publishers from other parts of Europe competing for readership, particularly among younger readers. Not all of these publications have been successful, but they have paved the way for others which are. And, of course, Paris is home to the World Association of Newspapers, an organization that fights for press freedom around the world and annually honors editors and publishers who are in the front lines of those battles, and sometimes lose their lives as a result," Higgins wrote.
Mark Baldwin is editor of the Register Star newspaper in Rockford, Ill., and has worked at several newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and the Wichita Eagle. He visited Paris with his wife Sydney in 2008.
"Friday's events resonated because I've walked some of the streets in the neighborhood where the attacks occurred," Baldwin wrote. "I remember sipping a Kronenbourg 1664 at a brasserie while waiting for Sydney to finish shopping, alternating between reading the International Herald Tribune and just watching people walk past. The attacks also sent a chill through me because of the reason we visited Paris when we did - our oldest daughter, Hannah, who was then a senior at the University of Minnesota, was spending a semester in Paris.
"After three months in France, she was a great tour guide, speaking nearly flawless French. She had a great experience - exactly what that student from California probably had before she died amid the gunfire Friday night. As parents, we support our kids' desire to explore the world, confident that what they learn will serve them throughout the rest of their lives. They're not supposed to get killed in the process
"The French cherish the individual's freedom to express himself in words and deeds as much as any people in the world. As sons and daughters of the First Amendment, I think it's important that we affirm our solidarity with the French. The Islamic State attacked France on Friday. But it's really at war with every nation and culture that values free thought and free expression. At this time, it's possible that the most important thing we can do to show our solidarity is remain alert to forces within our own country that would curb free speech, for instance, in the name of political correctness or national security.
Jamie Tobias Neely is a former Spokesman-Review features editor and editorial writer and now teaches journalism classes at Eastern Washington University.
"I've been to France three times, but Paris only twice. In that country I see people and a way of life that seems familiar to me. And of course I love Paris for all the same reasons most people do: It's filled with beauty and history.
"Cajer, our daughter Megan and I tromped all over the Marais this summer and no doubt very close to some of the sites of the attacks. I was horrified by the news, and remain so. But I am at least equally unsettled by our domestic terrorists who shoot in college classrooms, the setting of so many of my days."
Jennifer Pignolet is a former Spokesman-Review reporter who now covers education for the Memphis Commercial Appeal. She was in Paris in the summer 2005, touring with other high school students.
"The attack has resonated with me on several fronts. One is certainly the idea that I partake in similar activities on a Friday night--hanging out at a restaurant, going to a concert. Many of the victims were around my age as well. It mostly affected me because of the people I know who were there at the time of the attacks, some of whom I didn't even know were there until they checked in. It was that much more of a reality that this was very close to home. It so easily could have been a member of my family or one of my friends at any of those places.
"I think it probably depends on the journalist, but generally speaking, Paris is one of the places we associate with being at the center of the world. Journalists always want to be where things are happening, and things are always happening in Paris. To be a reporter there, especially as an American, would be seen as quite an accomplishment."
Alison Boggs is a newsroom web producer at The Spokesman-Review and has worked previously here as a reporter and editor. Boggs has been to Paris three times and spent the 1987-1988 school year there, studying at The Sorbonne and at The Catholic Institute.
"The attack has had particular resonance, just because I am thinking back a lot more frequently on my time in Paris and the people I knew there." Boggs wrote.
" I am no longer in touch with any of my French friends, since it was 27 years ago that I lived in Paris, but I have been thinking of them and hoping they are all okay. I notice I have been combing through the lists of victims as they come out, hoping not to see their names. I hunted down my French 'brother' on Face book and read his recent posts even though we are not connected via social media. I can't help but think back on the time I spent there and the people I knew.
"It's the most beautiful city I've ever been to and I loved my year there. It remains one of the best years of my life. I would guess that for anyone who has been there, it holds special meaning for them because it is such a beautiful, historic city."
Autumn Phillips is a journalist who is in the process of moving from Carbondale, Illinois, where she was the editor, to Davenport, Iowa, where she will assume the editor's role there on Nov. 30. She visited Paris in August of 1999, when she was 26 years old.
Phillips wrote that she spent a night sleeping on the lawn of the Sacre Coeur. "When an old man saw me putting out my sleeping bag for the night, he came over and told me I would be killed in the night if I slept there. He told me to go to sleep and sat next to me all night, chain smoking cigarettes until I woke up. That's my memory of Paris."
