Peer Pitch & Concept Refinement Chart

 

CATEGORY	DETAILS
Film OR Magazine	Magazine
Genre	Cooking
Target Audience (Be specific)	Middle age and older people interested in cooking
What is your concept? (Be thorough & specific. Review the links on Blackboard)	My father works at First Watch which is a well-known breakfast restaurant. I plan on interviewing my father about the pancakes that they make for my feature story. This will be the August issue and will highlight Summertime favorite foods and specials that are served at First Watch.  The pictures included will be of my father to focus on the interview portion and pictures of fluffy thick pancakes.  In terms of the magazine’s continuation, we plan on making the feature story different each month by allowing readers to write in with their family history and interviews.
How did you conceive the idea for this concept?	Over the summer my father would make me and my mom the best pancakes that I have ever had. Whenever I go out to eat to get breakfast nothing comes close to the quality of pancakes that my father makes. I thought that this would be a good way to get his recipe out there for everyone to access.
What do you believe is unique about your concept?	This concept would be open to writers from all cultures and backgrounds and wouldn’t feature extremely similar meals. This would also allow room for exploration into history in terms of traditional food in different cultural backgrounds.
Why do you believe this product will be of interest to your audience?	We hope this magazine will help expose readers to various cultural recipes and traditions as well as real people with completely different backgrounds from their own. Everyone has their own story to tell and we hope readers will take interest to that along with new recipes they may have never been introduced to before.
FEEDBACK RECEIVED FROM PEERS	Go into the history of the food and/or culture of the food.  Different meals from different cultures  History of food; how some recipes came to be because of food scares  Talk about different meals around the country for the same holidays  Use national holidays as fillers  Appeal to health-conscious people with different versions of recipes  Possibly offer plant-based options  Offer a short-cut version

The feedback that I received during the pitch definitely improved my vision for my concept.  For my magazine I am doing a food magazine. It will be called Grandmas Kitchen and will focus on different types of food from different people and transitions. Some of the feedback I received was to talk about the history of the food; how some recipes came to be because of food scares, talk about different meals around the country for the same holidays, use national holidays as fillers, appeal to health-conscious people with different versions of recipes, possibly offer plant-based options, offer a short-cut version of the recipe. The feedback I received helped me broaden my ideas for this project. It gave me more ideas on what to put into my article. Originally, I was just going to interview my father and put in different ideas about his recipes but now I have a much more diverse idea of what my magazine is going to look like. I am going to add different food from different traditions to create a more unique magazine. 

The target audience for my magazine are mainly older people. Due to internet-based alternatives the aggregate revenue of U.S. based periodical publishers have fallen sharply in the past decade from 46 billion U.S. dollars in 2007 to around 28 billion in 2017 (Watson, 2020).  Yes, to some this would seem like an issue, but not for my magazine. Since 2012 there has actually been an increase in the total number of magazine readers in the U.S., “The number of magazine readers in the United States has increased in the last four years, with an estimated total of 216.5 million adult readers in 2015” (Watson, 2020). Like I said earlier, my target audience is mainly older people. A lot of older people enjoy having in-hand material to read such as newspapers or magazines so my number of subscriptions will not be affected due to my target audience. 

The assigned article supports my concept because the article talks about diversity in literature. Camille T. Dungy said “Through literature we formulate our cultural imagination. We turn to literature in part to understand who we have been and who we can be. As editors we are charged with shepherding new ways of seeing, thinking, and being into the world. Certainly, it is important to think about what doesn't happen if we don't have a wide range of editors doing this work, but it is also crucial to talk about all the wonderful things that can happen when we do have a diverse pool of editors”. For our concept we are including a write in submission where people from all different cultures will be allowed to mail us their own recipes to be included in our magazine. Our goal is to create a culture rich cooking magazine that includes food from diverse cultures from all around the world. We want to explore the different foods in different cultures and shed light on some of the lesser-known food.