NORTHAMPTON — Two Northampton High School students, Phoebe Jessup and Elena Frogameni, don’t just read the news — they participate in it.
The students received honorable mention for their documentary submission in C-SPAN’s national 2017 StudentCam competition. With their documentary, titled “Trust and Funding: Sanctuary Cities and Immigration Reform,” the duo sought to localize a prominent national issue.
The theme of this year’s competition was, “Your message to Washington: What is the most urgent issue for the new president and Congress to address in 2017?” Jessup and Frogameni chose the topic of sanctuary cities partly because it was so close to home.
Northampton is a sanctuary city, a designation that forbids the use of municipal funds to assist federal agencies in seeking out and penalizing undocumented immigrants, and prohibits municipal employees from inquiring about individuals’ immigration status. In January, President Donald Trump released an executive order which threatened to restrict federal funds to sanctuary cities.
“I want people to know the whole story before they make a snap judgement about it,” Jessup, a senior, said about sanctuary cities. “In reality, I think that they (sanctuary cities) are beneficial to society.”
In the documentary, Jessup and Frogameni interviewed Mayor David Narkewicz and Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper. “We were trying to get an official perspective from a leader of our town,” Jessup said.
They also interviewed students who were protesting at Smith College. “So many people in our community care about it,” said Frogameni, a junior. “People are ready to put their words into action.”
While tackling the topic of sanctuary cities, Frogameni and Jessup had to do much research. They took the documentary as an opportunity to learn more about the topic themselves, while also providing a window on the issue to other students.
“It’s going to keep being an issue. It’s not going away,” Frogameni said. “For me, it was important to find out what it actually meant to be a sanctuary city.”
This is the first year that Northampton High School has entered the C-SPAN documentary competition. Jessup and Frogameni’s documentary is one of 150 winning videos, out of 2,903 submissions from across the country.
Jessup first heard of the C-SPAN competition through her documentary and film teacher. The two students filmed for about two months, working out of The Transcript, the Northampton High School student news broadcast.
Both students serve on The Transcript, which broadcasts once a week. Jessup is a videographer and assistant news producer and Frogameni is a reporter and communications and media coordinator. The Transcript has been nominated for three New England Regional Student Emmy awards.
“It’s really a place where students can take these issues and find people to interview and make it a story that we can share with our community,” Frogameni said about The Transcript.
Planning for an award ceremony in June to honor the students is in the works, and may occur in conjunction with the NCTV film festival.