I remember watching Annenberg Media’s coverage of election night in 2016 when President Trump was victorious over Hillary Clinton. I was so fascinated with how a student media organization managed to produce several hours of live election coverage. I long waited for election day 2020 when I could be a part of Annenberg Media’s extensive coverage. My hope was to be a live reporter covering a watch party or vote center. But with the COVID-19 pandemic, I knew that would not be feasible this year.
I was fortunate enough to be selected as one of Annenberg Media’s breaking news reporters on election night. After filling a 14-page Google document with research about key battleground states and election history, I was prepared to go live from my home in Seattle. As luck would have it, less than 10 minutes after the start of our coverage, the technical system lost its signal and the livestream stopped. I held out hope that the technical issues would be fixed, but it was to no avail.
The producers decided the show must go on and proceeded to go live with students who were in Annenberg’s studio at USC. Even though I was disappointed that I could not have a larger part in Annenberg Media’s coverage, I was glad to have been given the opportunity to participate and contribute.
The hard work I put into preparing for live election reporting was not wasted. It helped me produce my newscast, See-It-Live, the following Thursday. Since See-It-Live is a show that is based on a specific topic, it was no surprise that the topic would be the election.
When deciding what to focus on for our show, my fellow producer, Alex Song, and I decided it was best to focus the show on reactions from first-time voters and students, rather than a newscast simply filled with election results. We wanted to give our viewers a first-hand point of view from young voters themselves.
We did explain some California propositions and the electoral college process, but much of the newscast featured student voices. As objective as I wanted to keep our coverage, I wanted our show to feature reactions from voters and hear the impact the election had on them.
I felt the more voices we were able to have for our election show, the more relatable it would be to our viewers. It’s safe to say that most people were anxious coming into this election season, so for us to have students talking about their thoughts and feelings was a good way to connect with our audience.
When all was said and done, our show was 20 minutes long! It was the longest See-It-Live this semester. The show included news packages, proposition explainers, and our game segment, Hashtagged. I could not have been more proud of what we were able to create as my final week as lead producer.
With only one more show to go this semester, I am excited to see what we can do.