I chose the NYT story “Mississippi’s Capital Loses Water as a Troubled System Faces a Fresh Crisis” by Rick Rojas. The story was front-page in the paper of August 31, 2022.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/us/mississippi-jackson-water.html
Potential features that could be created out of this story:
- The troubled story of drinking water in the US
- The efficiency of home water filters (like Brita)
- Drinking water quality in the US in comparison with other countries
- The number 1 question when traveling anywhere in the world: Can I drink the local tap water?
- Water Quality at Morningside University – what exactly are students drinking?
- How drinking water can make or break communities
- Drinking water – an inconspicuous detail of life that we only really start to worry about when it is missing
Overall, the feature I would most like to do is a mix between 2 and 5 or, alternatively, just 7. I think it would be interesting to find out about the quality of drinking water on campus. Maybe I could enlist a biology professor to show me how to test water quality. For 7, it would be interesting to write about what effect it has when tap water suddenly can’t be trusted anymore and what should be done to avoid that happening to communities.
I think 5 would be good actually. As we discussed in class, Sioux City water is bad. Probably worse than what most students had at home. How do they cope? Pass this on to Rena if you’re not interested.
7 could be a good health story, but I’m probably way late on that one.