Dozens of Principia students put on a three-hour live broadcast of election results on Election Day for one of the most watched US presidential elections.
This semi-annual event, known as Prin at the Polls, was essentially a live TV news broadcast run and staffed by students. Two anchors, senior Kaya Equevilley and junior Ethan Booth, anchored the program, directing the audience’s attention to what came next, and asking questions to other students and experts. Both Booth and Equevilley are members of the Pilot.
“Doing a three-hour live TV program would be a big undertaking for any news organization,” visiting broadcasting professor Tim Backshall, who acted as producer for the student-run event said, “so to do it in a student-run capacity is asking a lot. The students who took it on should be really proud of themselves.”
Prin at the Polls had more than 50 students working on it. Five different classes—Broadcast Journalism, Women in Politics, American Government and Politics, PCTV, and American Parties and Elections—all participated.
“It’s always an honor to represent Principia to a wider audience,” Booth said, “and to cover such an important topic.” Booth anchored the previous Prin at the Polls two years ago with Equevilley when he was a freshman. He said that helped set the stage for their success this year round.
“The program this time around was a step above two years ago,” Booth said.
As anchors, Equevilley and Booth were on air for most of the program.
“Kaya and Ethan did an amazing job,” Backshall said, “to stay focused and so professional over three hours. That was a huge task, and they performed it brilliantly.”
Backshall has decades of experience as a news reporter for ITV News in England. As producer for Prin at the Polls, he organized the technical aspect of the operation. There were many moving parts to the broadcast from the newsroom, designing the set, coordinating Zoom interviews, cameras, teleprompters, videos, and advertisements. He said he wanted to bring his experience to Prin at the Polls.
“My job was to bring together all the different strands of Prin at the Polls,” Backshall said, “to produce the most professional program we could.”
Several students acted as reporters looking at live election results as reputable news sources reported them state by state. Like most of the reporters, Freshman Mayah Campagna was a reporter in the newsroom in charge of reporting on one state.
“I was representing Montana,” Campagna said, “which was an interesting state. Not really because of the presidential race. They had a senate race that was important.” Prior to Prin at the Polls, Campagna said she knew “absolutely nothing” about Montana politics. But Campagna had to research and give two 90-second segments of content about Montana politics. One of them was written beforehand and the other was an update written during Prin at the Polls.
“It’s an organized chaos,” Campagna said about how Prin at the Polls was run.
One of the main reasons Prin at the Polls exists is to teach students, according to John Williams, a professor in the Political Science division and one of the leaders of Prin at the Polls.
“I was involved with Prin at the Polls since it started,” Williams said. “We’ve been doing this for over 20 years.” Prin at the Polls started as a live radio broadcast in the 1990s but switched to live televised broadcasts, then transitioned to YouTube. One focus Williams said is that Prin at the Polls teaches students in a new way.
“It’s such a real-life teaching experience,” Williams said, “They were learning to be a journalist on the fly…Now they know what they need to learn.” Such a hands-on project gives students a different experience than learning in the classroom.
Students said they learned from their experiences running the broadcast.
“I learned a lot about American government,” Campagna said, “Even though I’m in a class about it. It’s cool to see it happening, about how the presidential election and senate and house and see how they’re all presented.”
Booth said it was a good practice for him.
“I learned just to keep it simple as a journalist,” Booth said, “I found myself drowning on the first hour of the program, and my biggest takeaway was to keep it natural.”
Prin at the Polls is set to return—and teach new students—at the election in two years time.
