Marseille
Often when we study a time and place we seek out primary
sources to provide us with a window into society. A primary source is “a first-hand, direct source of
information or research, such as the words of a person who is the subject,
official government records, or the memoirs of others; document examined that
had not been amended by a third party…”
Primary sources tend to be snippets of history and studying
them encourages us to look for other evidence in order to complete our
investigation. On the other hand,
when we look at secondary sources - such as newspaper, magazine, TV, or
documentary representations of an event or question - we don’t always look
around for more since the report tends to be a synthesis of several pieces of
evidence that gives us a fuller view of the situation. However, it can be equally as rewarding
to compare several secondary sources about a particular situation. Brining together reports from a
variety of sources lets us build a
more complex and complete view of a situation, event, or question and deepens our
understanding. A case in point
would be these three reports about Marseille. Marseilles is known as France’s second biggest city, the
oldest city in France, and the busiest and largest port on the
Mediterranean. But is Marseille
France’s real capital, France’s cultural capital, or France’s murder
capital? These three reports from
three different English-language sources offer a multi-pronged answer to that
question while raising other questions that we can look into. As we read the reports, we will find
some themes that
© OTCM/ADD
This article appeared in the Real Estate section of France Today July 6, 2010. British journalist Suzanna Chambers, who lives with
her family in the south of France wrote the article. She is a regular reporter for France Today and other British newspapers – including The Sunday Times. She also edits the luxury real estate
magazine Carpe Diem, and contributes
to Angloinfo.com and various lifestyle magazines.
France Today is a magazine oriented towards an international Francophile audience
interested in French travel, culture, gastronomy, society & politics, real
estate for sale and vacation rentals.
This article appeared in print – 10/4/13 – in the Travel
section of The New York Times, with
the headline “The Real Capital Of France.” Michael
Kimmelman is the author. He is a
well-known and prize-winning architecture critic at The New York Times.
In this second link there is the same short documentary but this one is from
the Journeyman web site and has the transcript in English of the documentary)
Frontline: Marseille is presented and produced by Evan Williams. For over 20 years he has been a TV news
and current affairs reporter for SBS, an Australian national television
network, as well as Channel 4 in the UK, and PBS Frontline World in the US.
The documentary appears on the Journeyman Pictures channel on
youtube. Journeyman Pictures
gathers documentaries and reports from producers around the world that offer
high-quality and thought-provoking journalism.
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