Ball State's 'Thank a Journalist Day'
Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., launched a Thank a Journalist campaign on March 12 that drew over 2,500 Twitter participants and generated over 2 million social media impressions.
Among those who participated were a firefighter team, a radio station using the #ThankAJournalist hash tag on its polls, Ted Allen (host of the TV food show "Chopped") and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
“We had minority, agrarian, religious, high school, college, tech-based and mainstream news outlets participate,” said Michelle O’Malley, campaign class advisor.
O’Malley said the students were challenged to:
1) Make #ThankAJournalist trend on either FB or Twitter. “It trended on Twitter in Indianapolis for approximately three hours at #2 behind a new restaurant,” she reported.
2) Have #ThankAJournalist appear on all continents. “We reached 57 different countries over five continents and we sent out a bunch of original language press releases to many of those countries reached – like Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Australia was reached so that counted for Antarctica too.”
3) Have a physical community outreach activity. “Our booth … had students and community members attend and participate.”
See the campaign website, Twitter feed, and Facebook page.
News coverage highlights:
The Star Press (Muncie, Ind.)
Journal Review (Crawfordsville, Ind.)
The Times (Hamilton County, Ind.)
The Ball State Thank a Journalist team. Left to right: Students Claire Demirjian, Jillian Wilschke, Eddie Metzger, Kelli Reutman, Alissa Brewer, Michaela Dean, and Lecturer and Class Advisor Michelle O'Malley.