Meg Kissinger came into #loweclass #digital last Wednesday to not only sit in on our class and learn what we are doing for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, but also about our project that we will be doing for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel later in the year. Kissinger not only discussed her mental health care beat and how she got there, but also gave positive feedback for the MNNS stories.
Kissinger started out being a journalist student at Depaw University, where she worked on the student newspaper for four years. Following college, Kissinger spent a brief amount of time working in upstate New York before relocating to the Milwaukee area, where she now works for the Journal Sentinel. Covering many beats, Kissinger slowly made her way into mental heath care beat, doing various stories for the beat until she was permanently covered it.
What makes Kissinger great at her beat is that she has personal experiences with those with mental illnesses, and has a vested interest to change what's going on in mental health care. Kissinger is a part of a large family, being one of eight. However, she has also seen the horrors of mental illness, as two of her brothers and sisters have committed suicide, while another suffers from schizophrenia.
In her stories, Kissinger uses real experiences from her life and from others. Two of her stories were personal accounts of how her family coped with the deaths of her family members, which received warm responses from the public. Kissinger said in class that through her beat, if she was able to make one person's life better through her stories and through her actions on the beat.
Kissinger is a very congenial person who has a real passion not only for mental health care but for journalism in general. I'm very excited to see
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