USC student journalists covered every aspect of President Barack Obama's Oct. 22 visit to campus, posting stories and live updates continuously from before dawn until late in the night. A live video stream produced by Annenberg TV News served as the official feed from the university.
The student-media blitz started when the Daily Trojan broke the story on Oct. 14 about Obama's visit. Then, Neon Tommy (coverage here), ATVN, Annenberg Radio News (coverage here) and the Daily Trojan began publishing a nine-day flurry of stories and social-media updates that culminated in a Democratic political rally in front of Doheny Memorial Library with an estimated 37,500 attendees.
"There could be no finer illustration of how important journalism students are to meeting the public’s information needs in this new media environment than the work done by our students covering President Obama’s visit," said School of Journalism professor and director Geneva Overholser. "In the sheer quantity of work, the figures are staggering. The quality is even more striking."
Neon Tommy broke its daily traffic record with more than 30,000 page views on the day of the rally.
"The experience of covering Obama was priceless. It was a true privilege to have the opportunity to report on a sitting president 100 feet from our newsroom," said Neon Tommy editor-in-chief Callie Schweitzer, adding that the student coverage of President Obama's visit was proof that there is no such thing as a "student journalist."
"We're all journalists working in real time and in the real world," Schweitzer said. "The 20-25 pieces (Neon Tommy) produced on the rally show our students' commitment to national politics. The devotion to rock-solid coverage of the rally is proof that Annenberg students care about what's happening outside the USC bubble and that they can make a difference in the larger media sphere."
ATVN accepted the task of live streaming the entire rally with only about 48 hours to prepare.
"Our students should be proud of their work in putting together a milestone for both ATVN and Annenberg," said Serena Cha, ATVN faculty advisor and director. "ATVN's live video stream received more than 6,500 views at the height of the president's speech. More than 30 students volunteered to deliver extended coverage including the live video stream, live shots from reporters, updated tweets every few minutes, and a slew of video and text articles. It is a wonderful step forward when college students are able to produce such thorough coverage of this kind of event."
Some students even stayed the night on campus because they worked late Thursday night and had to be back to work at 5:30 a.m. on rally day.
"We knew it would take a lot out of us, but we weren't sure how much," said Matt Schrader, an executive producer at ATVN. "But seeing such a major event take place in our own backyard really triggered the inner news junkie in all of us and kept us going strong."
ATVN executive producer Christian Martinez said Annenberg students came together and persevered through the hard work and sometimes stressful moments.
"It made me so happy and I felt so honored to be a part of an organization where individuals really go above and beyond the call of duty to get things done," said Martinez, whose day started at 5:30 a.m. and ended at 8:30 p.m. "I mean, people were willing to miss going into the rally for the sake of posting Web content from inside the newsroom. Everyone did such an amazing job, and it really did take a team of hard working and dedicated people to get it done."
Trevor Thompson (pictured, top left), an ATVN producer who was one of three students doing live shots from the main camera location, said ATVN is one of the best student-run news organizations in the country, and that he was happy to work so hard for more than 12 hours the day of the rally.
"The praise and congrats we got from other organizations and faculty at USC made it well worth the effort," said Thompson, looking a little red from being in the sun all day. "Plus, this was the first live stream of an event like this ever conducted by ATVN. And it's always fun to be a part of history."
Overholser said she was glued to ATVN's live stream throughout the day.
"Add in the phenomenal work done by Neon Tommy, which seemed to be everywhere at every moment, as well as the constant stream of newsy and interesting updates by Intersections, Annenberg Radio News and ATVN staff, and you have a comprehensive, multi-media news package I would put up against any news organization’s coverage of a major event anywhere," Overholser said. "Especially pleasing to me is that these students did it all so collaboratively: Across media platforms and across news outlets, they contributed together to build a menu of incomparable richness. This is what the future looks like."
