Interfaith spaces encourage connection across beliefs

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Natalia Jarrett: 

Welcome back to the podcast! The Purity Issue of State Press magazine is now available in newsstands near you.

Wendy Maddox: 

This episode, we feature the authors of 2 articles to provide insight into the research and process of how they wrote their stories.

Natalia Jarrett: 

Reporter CJ Stevenson interviews Lulu Zettler

Wendy Maddox:  

And Matthew Marengo interviews Jude Banihani

Natalia Jarrett: 

I’m Natalia Jarrett

Wendy Maddox: 

I’m Wendy Maddox 

Natalia Jarrett: 

and this is State Press Play

CJ Stevenson:

My name is CJ Stevenson. This is Lulu zedler, and today I'll be interviewing her about not naked, but nude. Lulu, can you follow me about the process that you had when writing this article?

Lulu Zettler:

Yeah, so it was my first article. So I mean, the process is you kind of just like, start out and you would do like your first draft or your three pitches. So I pitched two other ideas with it. And so I just did my pitch, which is just kind of giving the outline of the story, like the idea and whatnot. And then obviously the first thing I went and did it is I reached out to the professor of the class that the story is about. So I reached out to him, and he let me kind of sit in on one of his classes and talk to the students and stuff. So once I did that, I had a lot of material to go off of to kind of finish it up.

CJ Stevenson:

What students did you pick out for your article?

Lulu Zettler:

Yeah, so I was obviously able to, like, sit into the class. So I was kind of sitting behind a couple people. I interviewed one person that the professor had recommended to me that I should chat with, and then the other two people were just people that I was sitting behind. I could see what they were working on, so I chose to chat with them.

CJ Stevenson:

Can you talk a little bit more about, like, the research aspect of this that you had to go into before you did your article?

Lulu Zettler:

Yeah, so I mean, figure drawing, I feel like it's not something that, like a lot of people know a lot about. I mean, I didn't know a lot about it, so I honestly just did, like, a pretty broad Google search, learn a little bit more about it, what the ideas are, and then the professor was able to give me a lot of information. But in terms of, like, historical stuff, I just looked up, like the history from the very beginning, and just kind of looked through all of that to kind of get a better idea of, kind of like it's important throughout history.

To hear more from Lulu, please tune in to State Press Play.

Matthew Marengo: 

Hi, my name is Matthew, and today I'm joined by Jude bonihani, and today we're talking about her article, hijabs and haram. First of all, can you just tell me a little bit about the reasoning behind why you wanted to write this article?

Jude Banihani: 

So in my sort of like to do list for journalism, I keep a list of different stories I'd like to write eventually, whether it's like on my personal blog or for State Press. And this was always on the list. And when I saw that for this month we were doing the purity issue, I felt like this was like the perfect time to do this article.

Matthew Marengo:  

What, what are kind of the decisions that go into making it either a State Press article, or, as you said, one of your personal ones.

Jude Banihani: 

I feel like if it fits into one of the themes of the State Press magazines. Then it's going in the State Press. And then my personal blog, I like to focus on, like, politics, history, things like that. So not as much like ASU related pieces.

Matthew Marengo: 

And then for this specific article, can you talk a little bit more about the, you know, thought process that went behind when you were getting these interviews, when you were writing just kind of what was going through your mind from the beginning till the end?

Jude Banihani: 

So I'm a part of a club at ASU called Sadiq, and it's like the Mina Student Union. So I knew that there were, like, a lot of girls in the organization who could speak on this topic. And then I sort of wanted to, like, get a wide range of people. So I wanted to interview people who wore hijabs, people who did not wear hijabs, people who were not necessarily Arab, because I feel like everyone already associates Islam with the Arab community, but I wanted to highlight non Arab experiences.

To hear more from Jude, please tune in to State Press Play.

Wendy Maddox: 

That’s all for this episode of State Press Play. I’m Wendy Maddox

Natalia Jarrett:

and I’m Natalia Jarrett. State Press Play is produced by our podcast desk editor, Connor Greenwall, and our vidpod editor Grace Johnson. Our original music is by Ellie Willard and Jake LaRoux [La-Row]. 

Natalia Jarrett:

Special thanks to our managing team, Matthew Marengo and Ava Peguese.

Wendy Maddox: 

You can check out all these stories and more on statepress.com. See you next time.