Media Participation Project - Jessica Smith

When I first learned about the media participation project, I knew exactly what I wanted to do right away. It is an aspiration of mine to be a food writer, and I heard so many students complaining about the campus dining hall food, so I knew I wanted to get involved in something that would relate to the issue. It was when I went to Sweetgreen, a salad restaurant near campus, when I thought of what I wanted to make my article about. Sweetgreen has the calorie counts of all their food products posted on the menu, and I had the idea that the on campus dining halls should do the same. I used Beteck's suggestion and emailed the editor of The Campus Trainer, a health and nutrition publication on campus. The editor, Jamie Weissman, was very open to my article pitch. She gave me a deadline and set me up with a photographer for my story, and the rest was up to me.

I began by trying to interview a couple students as well as employees in the South Campus dining hall. I asked them things such as, "Do you think it would be beneficial to have the calories of the food here broadcasted? Why?" and "What are your eating habits here at the diner?" However, it turned out to be much harder than I anticipated to actually find workers/students that cared about knowing the nutritional information of the food they were serving/eating. After a couple attempts, I finally gathered some good quotes to put into my story. I also researched the school dining services website and found out that it does not have the nutrition information available there either.

After I finished my article, I sent it into Jamie Weissmann. She had been very helpful throughout the process of me pitching and writing the article, but once I sent it in I did not hear back from her for almost two weeks. I decided to send a follow up email just making sure she got the article and that she did not have any issues with it. She responded soon after, apologizing because she had a busy past two weeks and that the article will be published the week before Thanksgiving.

This experience helped me realize how difficult it is to structure a good interview, and get good answers in return. I also learned about how much research a journalist must do if he/she wants to create an informative and, in my case, persuasive article for the audience. I definitely think that if I had a longer amount of time, I would be able to delve more into the issue of dining hall foods on college campuses. However, the experience also opened me up to the option of writing about things other than food and nutrition, which was originally my main aspiration as a journalist. I am hoping to gain more experience here on campus by writing for more publications, or volunteering for the UMDTV station. Doing so will give me a better understanding about what it means to be a journalist and work with media, and it will give me more opportunities to get my work out there and noticed.