COM Students Report the 2024 Presidential Election | BU Today

With information feeds, social media accounts, and TV networks lighting up with election protection, it’s straightforward to get sucked right into a vortex of nationwide information articles.

However don’t overlook to tune in to the dynamic election day tales rising proper from BU’s campus. School of Communication college students from a wide range of programs and extracurriculars are choosing up their reporter’s notebooks, microphones, cameras, and recorders to cowl the historic face-off between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. With their reporting comes a contemporary new perspective on nationwide politics—that of Era Z. US Information experiences that greater than two-thirds of People ages 18 to 34 report that inflation is a serious concern of theirs, as is abortion, gun management, and democracy.

And whereas their media careers are nonetheless budding, these COM college students are bringing simply as a lot hearth to election protection as different main media shops, says Adam Boyajy (COM’03), station supervisor for BUTV and WTBU radio and a COM lecturer in movie, tv, and journalism. 

The scholars “are doing this as a result of they actually care in regards to the venture, and so they’re critical journalists,” Boyajy says. “This complete course of has been rewarding for them, and the angle that they bring about to it is vitally refreshing and really inspiring.”

BUTV and Boston College Information Service (BUNS) are two of COM’s student-led organizations protecting the election this yr, along with the unbiased scholar newspaper the Each day Free Press and a few journalism courses. BUTV, which Boyajy says has created election programming since 2012, will air this yr’s present, United We Vote, on November 6 at 7:30 pm. United We Vote will function visitor interviews, man-on-the-street conversations with voters, protection at native polling places, and updates on presidential outcomes. 

Scholar views and voices are integral to the day’s programming, says co–government producer Sydney Topf (COM’25). “We’re college students on prime of being producers, however we’re additionally Gen Z voters,” she says. “So we all know what Era Z voters wish to see.”

Accordingly, the present will cowl absentee voting and the position of the Divine 9—a gaggle of black fraternities and sororities shaped within the twentieth century—in Kamala Harris’ marketing campaign. That’s along with interviews with high-profile company like Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who was Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential operating mate in 2016. Topf remembers how she felt when one of many present’s writers got here as much as her and instructed her that Kaine had agreed to be interviewed. She instantly texted her colleagues Sophia Falbo (COM’25) and Addison Cummings (COM’25), amazed and thrilled that the senator can be part of their present. 

Trying again, Topf has a guess as to why Kaine agreed to work with them. 

“That is the following technology of voters, that is the following technology of reporters,” she says. “You wish to be part of this.” 

Over at BUNS, college students have already began publishing preelection day tales, on matters together with absentee poll voting in Australia and political indicators in Massachusetts, however protection will ramp up on November 5. That night time, editor-in-chief Falbo expects to be working late into the night serving to push out breaking information, reside updates, and different day-of tales. “I’m past excited,” she says. “I actually couldn’t be extra grateful for these alternatives.”

Falbo can also be a coexecutive producer of the BUTV election present together with Topf and Cummings. The trio has been hustling since June to recruit the 50-some-person election present group and plan protection. 

Cummings describes the present as “by college students and for college kids. Greater than something, we’re all functioning as a collective,” she says. 

2024 election has a specific dynamism

College students from journalism courses round COM are additionally protecting the election. For instance, the Reporting with Audio and Video class, led by Tina McDuffie, a COM affiliate professor of the observe of journalism and BUTV school advisor, will hit the polls on the afternoon of November 5 to interview voters for video and audio segments. In the meantime, McDuffie’s TV Function Reporting class will report up till the election for public broadcasting service Boston Neighborhood Community. Lastly, the Newsroom class and Multimedia Storytelling class—taught by Gina Gayle, a COM affiliate professor of the observe and BUNS school advisor—will assist with the BUNS election protection. 

With two drastically totally different candidates which have reworked what campaigning seems like—see Harris’ “Brat” rebrand or Trump’s repeated podcast appearances—this election holds a specific dynamism that Gayle is urging her college students to seize. “I actually wish to have college students get a really feel for the heart beat and the power,” she says, “so not solely making good visible nonetheless moments, however including audio and video to that.” 

Over on the Each day Free Press, BU’s unbiased scholar newspaper, scholar journalists will seize that pulse in a particular 12-page presidential print version popping out on Friday, November 8. Each part of the paper, from format and graphics to opinion and information, is embracing election protection, says editor-in-chief Mara Mellits (COM’26). 

“That is actually distinctive,” Mellits says of the possibility to cowl the presidential race. “Once I obtained the [editor-in-chief] place I used to be actually excited that I might have an opportunity to supervise the election print and the protection we’d be placing out.” 

Fortuitously, all three information organizations have robust political reporting foundations to depend on: BUNS coated the 2022 midterm elections and the January New Hampshire main. BUTV’s 2018 midterm election protection received an Emmy from the Nationwide Academy of Tv Arts & Sciences (NATAS) Boston/New England chapter. The nationwide NATAS governs a portion of the Emmy Awards. As for the 54-year-old Each day Free Press, it has a wealthy custom of political protection—whether or not that be midterms, mayoral races, or presidential elections. One of many paper’s 2016 presidential election prints hangs within the newsroom, reminding scholar editors of this custom.

That basis might be very important for scholar journalists as votes roll in, and pockets of BU’s campus rework into high-powered newsrooms. 

“That 24-hour time interval goes to be essentially the most chaotic, annoying, thrilling, second of our lives,” Topf says of the hours between election day and United We Vote going reside. “It’s going to be one thing we received’t overlook.”

Mellits expects an identical rush late Thursday, as editors put in a brilliant late night time working to publish essentially the most up-to-date election information attainable. However pleasure about protecting this historic second, she says, offers the momentum they should surge forward. “If you happen to’re doing this, you actually find it irresistible,” Mellits says. “That’s why we’re placing within the time for it.” 

Boyajy emphasizes that of their protection, scholar journalists haven’t shied away from their identification as this nation’s freshman—but undeniably influential—voting technology. 

“Hopefully folks will tune in and really feel like they obtained a novel perspective from younger, passionate, caring journalists which might be telling an genuine story about what’s occurring on the earth and in politics proper now,” he says.

BUTV’s United We Vote will air at 7:30 pm on November 6 on the BUTV web site in addition to on the station’s Youtube web page. 

BUNS election tales will be discovered on BUNS web site. 

The Each day Free Press election protection will be discovered on its web site, in addition to within the print version, out there exterior the FREEP workplaces at 708 Commonwealth Ave. on Friday, November 8. The print situation can even be distributed across the BU campus.