Principia students will be reporting on election results and broadcasting live from the college media studio on Election night, for one of the most watched US presidential elections, Tuesday, Nov. 5.
Prin at the Polls is a live, hands-on election coverage news program organized by Principia’s Political Science and Digital Media and Journalism departments. It is staffed by students and has been held every two years since the 1990s. The last Prin at the Polls student broadcast was in 2022.
“It was really fun because I got thrown right into the fire and I learned on the job,” said Ethan Booth, a junior, who co-anchored the previous Prin at the Polls event.
Students and faculty say it gives students in both departments first-hand experience of running a fast paced broadcast, or in the case of the political science students, the chance to share their research, in a way that can serve to help inform the community about an important election. Professor John Williams and Dr. Brian Roberts started the event at Principia College, and it has since continued under a variety of names.
Williams, a Political Science professor, said the goal of Prin at the Polls is to replicate the feel of a live national news operation covering the American General election for three hours.
Principia’s TV studio runs a television broadcast that will be live-streamed. Williams said students are involved in a variety of ways.
Williams said as the poll sites close on Election Day, a group of students acting as reporters will be responsible for researching verified, standard-based news sources to track how each state voted, much like what happens at local TV stations. This research will inform the types of interview questions the students acting as broadcast reporters will have for experts they interview. Political science students have been studying the political climate and key issues leading up to the election, they will be acting as experts in those areas. These student experts will be present in the studio and nearby, ready to answer questions from student reporters based on their own in-depth research.
Students will also prepare “B-rolls”on the seven that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election known as swing states. B-roll is the technical term for a 2-3 minutes pre-prepared video clip giving the background and rough history of each state. The clips will inform the viewer as to why each state is regarded as a swing state, according to Williams.
“The students are functioning as reporters, writers, editors, and traffic managers throughout the night,” he said.
Booth, a Political Science and Digital Media and Journalism major, said he is looking forward to participating again this year. Since the event was live-streamed, his family was able to watch from home when he was the co-anchor last time.
“It was a learning opportunity for me because it was my freshman year,” Booth said. “The professors did a great job preparing me even though I had little experience. It was cool for my family to see me in that element.”Senior Kaya Equevilley, a Mass Communication major with a minor in Global Studies, said she is a producer for PCTV (a student run TV station), which will support Prin at the Polls by creating graphics. “Juan Cabral and Kaiky DosSantos are working hard to create graphics for PCTV,” she said.
Williams said the team of students behind Prin at the Polls will essentially act as a local news TV station, collecting information from credible sources to report and provide context to viewers. He said the faculty will be working alongside students in the fast paced, live broadcast. “We are news aggregators like Yahoo and Google and others who go out and sweep up other news sources except we know who we are looking at.”
Booth will co-anchor again with Equevilley this Election Day. Both of them are also Pilot staff.
Prin at the Polls will be livestreamed on a Principia YouTube channel.
For more information go to https://www.principiacollege.edu/prinatthepolls
