The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is hoping to start a new tradition.
The journalism school and communication department collaborated to organize the first-ever “Maryland Makes History” event, which will take place on McKeldin Mall from 12 to 3 p.m. today in honor of National News Engagement Day.
Students can participate by stopping by the four media engagement tables on the mall, tweeting with the hashtag “#MakeNewsUMD” and taking part in a “freeze mob photo-op” on the mall at 2:30 p.m.
The Diamondback, campus radio station WMUC and a representative from C-SPAN will all be manning tables. A fourth table will have a photo opportunity in which students can have their pictures taken in “front-page frames” of major national newspapers, including The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Students who stop by all four tables will be entered for a chance to win a $100 gift card to the University Book Center.
A tour of the C-SPAN bus originally was part of the day’s events, but it will no longer be available because of mechanical issues, according to a news release sent by C-SPAN marketing representative La’Shawna Saint-Preux.
C-SPAN will still interview university President Wallace Loh and air the conversation on its morning program, Washington Journal, according to the release.
The day also features a media participation survey that AEJMC administered throughout the country.
One hundred participants took a survey about their media habits at this university. About half of respondents were students in the communication department.
The results showed that 71 percent of those surveyed consumed their news from Twitter, Facebook or other online sources. A majority also spend less than 10 minutes getting the news each day. Results showed that print newspapers and radios are the least popular news sources among participants.
In contrast, only 9 percent of national survey respondents cited Twitter as a trustworthy news source.
“This definitely shows a trend that students want news convenient to them, accessible and written in a language they understand,” said Megan Landau, the event’s organizer and a junior communication major.
