Electionmania
The magic of broadcast is that you never know what’s going to happen. This is especially true on one of the most important nights in America, presidential election night. I was lucky enough to be on the Tuesday team this semester and cover the actual Election Day. As web and graphics teammate this week, I made sure to get the most relevant news on the website, under our new homepage, “Decision 2012.” I had to keep up with what type of angles and stories we were covering on the live broadcast so we could follow along on the web, as well. When one of our multimedia journalists went to cover Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa voting at the Wilshire United Methodist Church for the broadcast story, we made sure to not only re-tweet her live photos of the mayor but also use her photo for our web story.
Like any other broadcast day, it’s vital to keep up-to-date with the wires and budget. This is particularly important for election coverage because things change so quickly, especially when it gets closer to 6 p.m. I also learned the value of fact checking. During our live show, we got an update from the Associated Press in the wire that said Governor Mitt Romney had won Michigan. John was the first to notice how odd this was and asked us to double-check the update. Thinking the AP wire was accurate, we put it in the rundown. Minutes later, another AP wire was sent that said there was a correction and indeed, it was President Barack Obama who won Michigan. This shows that even a large news agency like the Associated Press can sometimes be wrong! It’s vital for the smaller news shows like us to double check the information we receive.
While the elections made the normal ATVN day even more crazy than usual, I am definitely so grateful to be a part of the experience. Not everyone can say they helped work on a live broadcast on one of the most important nights in American history.
I was also especially excited to see a photo of me and my Executive Producer Christen Lazarcheck on the home page of ATVN about student election coverage this morning:
