Biography

A longtime print journalist, Judith became interested in the food system as a reporter at The Washington Post. Assigned to the paper's food section for the last ten years, she wrote about a variety of subjects, including stories about food safety, farmers markets, local foods, new immigrant farmers and the roles all of these play in American life. As a Food and Society fellow, she spent considerable time reporting, writing and generating oral histories of key people who have been influential in changing the conversation about food and the U.S. food system. During spring and summer of 2007, as lobbyists and legislators worked hard to influence the content of the 2008 Farm Bill, most people had no idea of the bill's scope and its impact on the American food system. And when the mass media talked about the bill, it tended to focus on some of its historic, and dramatic, inequities. In an effort to reach out to ordinary people, Judith organized and moderated two well-attended open forum panels, "Putting Food Back in the Farm Bill," in Washington DC and Westport CT. Panelists included policy experts, chefs and farmers.