Reporters, editors and producers from various USC Annenberg newsrooms were engaged in election results Nov. 6, working to get the information out to local and national residents as quickly as possible (view photos).
Neon Tommy, Annenberg Radio News (ARN) and Annenberg TV News (ATVN) collaborated together Tuesday night to provide comprehensive and quickly updated coverage.
“This is so much more than just Barrack Obama vs. Mitt Romney,” said Catherine Green, Neon Tommy’s editor-in-chief. “There are a lot of issues at stake in this election, and there’s so many different angles you can take and we wouldn't want our coverage to be so heavily focused on one aspect of that.”
Green said people were likely to be drawn in to the Neon Tommy site because of the original stories they were telling.
“Talking to real people that our readers can relate to, that's what I think people want to hear and they want to read about,” she said.
Neon Tommy reporters also went on Annenberg Radio News live through the night talking about what was going on as far as the electoral map and some of the congressional races around the country. ARN held 10-minute updates every hour on KXSC Radio 1560 AM covering general election information, as well as hosted talk shows for more in-depth topics.
“We're interviewing experts on issues related to politics such as climate change and health care and we’re interviewing candidates of politician's campaigns,” said ARN reporter Max Schwartz.
Six ARN reporters were in the field Tuesday night providing live hits from around the city covering local races, propositions, and responses. ATVN was all over Los Angeles covering the propositions, covering the different campaigns, and covering the candidate in Los Angeles. They also did stand ups at the USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center getting student reactions.
“There's a lot of other reporting, but I think that everybody should actually watch everything and read everything that all the USC productions are producing tonight,” said Raquelle Ross, ATVN election producer, “ATVN is just a good source to keep up with the statistics and what's going on with the election right away, right then and there because we're live.”
The Daily Trojan also sent photographers and reporters across campus to get the student voice on Election Day. “I think that the interesting thing about the Daily Trojan as opposed to ATVN or Neon Tommy is that we really are localized to USC,” said Annalise Mantz, Daily Trojan news editor.
Sixteen students from public relations professor Jennifer Floto's Specialized Writing in Public Relations course live tweeted throughout the evening. They commented on PR strategies as they evolved. The students also commented on the quality of coverage both inside and outside of USC Annenberg.
