Journalism

On February 22, I went to a talk that Rex Smith, the editor of The Times Union newspaper in Albany, was giving at Emma Willard. He talked about journalists’ imperative to tell the truth as well as they can, to strive for objectivity, and to wrestle with questions of ethics, among other things. Before stopping for questions, he added that another role of journalism that he sees as being as important as the delivery of facts is the revelation of lives and situations that most people don’t relate to. He described this kind of horizon-broadening journalism as serving to expose to readers more of the human condition, allowing them to see something of someone else’s experience and to therefore access more of their own humanity. I was so excited and gratified to hear Mr. Smith talk this way about journalism because as I continue through my project at RISSE, both attempting this kind of journalism myself and reading the work of others, I am increasingly captivated by the ...

This month, my RISSE visits had a lot of really interesting and variegated supplements. One of them took place during the week that the RISSE after school program was closed due to the Albany school system’s winter recess. Instead of our usual visit to the refugee center that week, we stayed at Emma Willard and had what was apparently a long-overdue volunteer training session with one of its staff members, Teresa. As part of the training, Teresa talked about the process refugees go through to get from their homes to a refugee camp to a place like the United States; RISSE’s history as an organization and what it does specifically for the 400 refugees and immigrants it serves in Albany; the status of RISSE’s clients (mostly refugees) and where in the world they come from (all over); and the emotional and behavioral implications of trauma, long stays in refugee camps, and world-shaking relocation that can exist for refugees. It was particularly interesting to...