1 November 2012
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Over 300 Bournemouth University students are working through the night on 6 November 2012 to provide live coverage of the US Presidential election. |
The Media School students will be providing TV, radio and internet reports which will be streamed online and they will also be providing live bulletins for local radio stations, including all night coverage for Dorset–based Hope FM, which also has a large internet following in the USA.
The project is led by undergraduate and postgraduate multimedia journalism students, but includes others from across the media school: TV Production, English, politics, and marketing and communications. The emphasis is on youth engagement with politics and the programmes are being produced by the students to their vision of how politics should be reported to a younger audience.
Mathew Charles, lecturer in TV Journalism, said: "Our converged newsroom set–up replicates the best of the professional world. We even have a newsgathering operation on the ground in the USA from students of the University of Massachusetts. It’s perfect preparation for trainee journalists. It doesn’t get more real than this – we even have an interview with the Vice–Presidential candidate for the libertarian party, Judge Jim Gray, lined up. Everyone is working extremely hard to make this event a success."
Stephen Sackur, BBC presenter and current affairs journalist said, "Having spent an afternoon chewing over the state of the presidential election, and the significance of the outcome with Bournemouth’s media students I know their ‘election special’ is going to be a well–informed, inventive and ambitious take on the race for the White House. From the complexities of the Electoral College to the ramifications for international diplomacy the Bournemouth team have got the bases covered."
The student editor–in–chief of the project, Oscar Tollast, said, "We are keen to aim it at a younger audience and make politics relevant, the fact that we have got 200 people on the Facebook group already interested in the event, let alone politics, is absolutely incredible. I think if this is successful then we’ve got a lot of young people engaged in politics and caring about what is happening in the world."
The project is a join global collaboration between BU Media School and students from the University of Massachusetts, US; Globo TV in Venezuela and The European Humanities University in Vilnius. Interviews have also been arranged with key political experts, including journalist and political–aide Alastair Campbell.
To watch the live coverage, please go to http://us2012.bujournalism.info/.
Note for Editors: For more details, including bespoke interviews or to report from BU on the night, please contact Nathaniel Hobby.
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