Cantaloupe Crisis Coverage

I. Preliminary title of the project
Cantaloupe Crisis

II. Members, classifications and emails
Dana Palmie dana.palmie@colorado.edu | lead coder, consumer insights
Liz Roland elizabeth.m.roland@gmail.com | grocery & restaurants
Laura Kirby laurajaynekirby@gmail.com | farming, statistics
Mackenzie Carroll mackenzie.a.carroll@gmail.com | victim perspective
Daniel Arinello daniel.ariniello@colorado.edu | medical information


III. Statement of purpose - A general mission statement about the purpose of your project.
The purpose of our project is to create accessible and relevant information about the economic, medical and social effects of listeria: How the listeria bacteria affects your body, what grocery stores and farmers are doing to keep you safe and which changes in purchasing habits will benefit consumers without destroying local economy.


IV. Scope and scale - How you will frame your topic to be broad enough to be of interest, but narrow enough to execute in the time you have.
We are framing our topic to focus on only one outbreak in Colorado so that it is narrow enough for us to cover in the time we have. We intend to cover this single outbreak from a variety of consumer angles so that a user will get a comprehensive view of how this and future outbreaks may affect them.

We’ll have a home page that features a video or multimedia piece that introduces our topic and our mission in creating the site. There will also be a brief text description of our purpose, which will incorporate our background as journalism students at CU Boulder, possibly linking to a team page.

On the home page, there will be a menu running across the top horizontally linking to separate pages with an image and title dedicated to each subtopic. There will be a page about what consumers should know when they are shopping and eating; a page about how restaurants and grocery stores have been affected by a change in supply and demand, and what they are doing to protect their customers and relationships to distributors; a page about farming processes and the affect that the recent listeria outbreak has had on farmers; a page describing what happens physiologically to make listeria dangerous and how bad victims can expect their symptoms to get; and a page about the outbreak from a victim’s perspective. There will also be an “About Us” link on the main menu. There will be a link to the “About Us” page on the bottom of each page identifying the author or each page.

V. Division of labor - Who will likely perform what tasks to complete the project.

Dana Palmie: I will be creating the stylesheet that dictates what each individual page will look like as well as coding the home page and the consumer insights page. I suspect I will be on call for any issues my group members have with coding their individual pages as well. For my consumer insights page, I plan to incorporate an interactive tool that describes the dangers of each type of food that has been an issue in recent Colorado history. I will start with cantaloupe and listeria so that it makes sense in conjunction with the rest of the site. I will also incorporate a timeline to show whether each food is still considered dangerous. I will probably make an infographic list of sorts with the top 5 (or 10 or 20) tips to remember when shopping and eating at restaurants that I will compile by speaking to experts. It would also be a good idea to include a map of which areas were affected by what with some sort of color gradient that shows how many people died or were hospitalized versus how many bought potentially contaminated food.

Liz Roland grocery & restaurants
I will be creating a page that focuses on the grocery stores and restaurants that were affected by the outbreak. I will focus on what the grocery stores and restaurants did to protect and make their clients more comfortable when the recall was first enacted as well as what they are doing to keep the trust of those same customers. I will also discuss what were the effects economically on the grocery stores and restaurants that readily incorporate cantaloupe in foods and as products. I will also touch on how previous outbreaks affected the respective organizations and whether the effects were better, worse or the same for the company.


Laura Kirby: Farming and statistics
I’ll create a  page focusing on farming including a description of the processes used to prevent outbreaks such as listeria via video footage. I’d like to talk to both a traditional and organic farmer, and aim to address whether organic farming presents additional risks. I’d also like to investigate the economic effects that the recent listeria outbreak has had on farmers.

On a separate page (not sure where this will go yet) I’ll create an interactive map showing listeria and other food borne illness outbreaks in Colorado to include the farming source and possible retail or victim locations depending on the type of statistics I find and whether I can fit all of that information on and retain clarity.

Mackenzie Carroll victim perspective
My page will focus on the victims of listeria in Colorado and how they were affected by the outbreak. To date there have been eight deaths in the state from listeria, and over 130 illnesses recorded. I would want to talk to the victim, the families of the victims, and see what happened to them physically and how they recovered. I’d also like to talk to families who are taking legal action to compensate for damages. I’ll speak to at least three victims with varying experiences with listeria.

To go off of the legal side of it, I would be interested in possibly linking to Liz’s section on food and grocer ramifications. Many retailers are trying to pass a bill that would absolve retailers of any responsibility for carrying a product on their shelves that is contaminated unbeknowst to them. I would connect this back to the victims and show their response to this proposed bill.

Daniel Arinello medical information
My page will include all medical background information regarding listeria, how it affects the body, symptoms, how to treat the illness, and medical advice for handling listeria cases.  Provide some supporting information on the reported cases and their severity.  This will be limited so that it does not repeat or detract too much from the victim perspective section.  I think it is also important to discuss the details of health insurance plans and how listeria treatment would be covered (especially cost).  

The page will have a couple of diagrams that explain how listeria affects the body and which biological systems are susceptible.  Also, I’d like to add video of an interview with a medical professional to add credibility to the section.  

VI. Preliminary story topics and media needs - 4-8 story ideas and media considerations.
1. What a consumer needs to know about listeria. Talk to several experts (someone from a consumer protection agency, a nutritionalist, an economist) about which changes in buying habits are helpful to individuals and farmers and which aren’t useful for anyone. Package these tips in lists that use graphics to identify which perspective they come from. These graphics may include photos of the expert speaking, a photo/illustration representing their field or photo representing one of the tips.
2. A map (hopefully interactive) showing listeria and other food borne illness outbreaks in Colorado with dates.
3.Interviews with two local farmers - one organic one none non-organic
4. How different organizations were/still are effected (grocery stores/restaurants). I will interview people from both groups.
5.  Medical diagrams, statistics on health policy/treatment costs, interviews with medical professionals (may need only one).
6. The relationship between retailers and victims of families affect by listeria during the legal process of those seeking damages. Research all current laws and see what precedent there is for listeria victims.

VII. Anticipated barriers or obstacles - What your team is concerned about at this point.
--Time.
--Our site will benefit from interactive features for quick delivery of a lot of different things to consider, so we will need to know how to build those.
--We will need to make sure that all of our different pages flow into a larger idea, but that they don’t become redundant. Touching base frequently should make this relatively easy.
--Creating a very clean and slick looking website!
--Lack of video experience
--Team communication (so we can make everything flow together)
--Continuity across all pages