Election night a learning experience for Mass Comm students

By Paige Potter–

The presidential election is not only a hectic time for the candidates but it’s also a crazy time for the media. Especially for small college mass communication departments wanting to run a live broadcast, like the one here at Morningside.

Preparation began days before the live broadcast for all people involved in the event Tuesday night.  By the time 7 pm rolled around, we were all ready to go live on air.

Nick Brincks, a junior mass communications major, anchored the live broadcast with guests Patrick McKinlay and Kitty Green, both political science professors.  Dr. Mark Heistad was the producer of the show having set a schedule to run for each hour we were on the air.

Alisa Christensen, Hannah Severson, and myself teamed together to run the TV control room.

Severson, a sophomore mass communications major, who ran the sound said, “I think getting to take part in a live broadcast was awesome.”

After the show went live, a welcome was to be done by Brincks.  The next topics were to talk to students who went to the Woodbury County Courthouse, talk to vote counters and talk with students in three different remote locations.

Before the welcome was even over, the TV control room received word none of the three topics outside the studio were ready to go yet.  With these students in different locations, they had to take equipment with them, hoping everything worked right, and then actually being able to go live on the air when they called in.

If only that worked like it was suppose to. None of the remote locations called in on time and left Brincks and McKinlay to fill five minutes of time.

Curve balls were thrown at everyone all night with connections at other locations not working or people not being ready. But, this being a live broadcast, we had to come up with something else for the hosts to talk about.

Severson also said,  “At times it was very stressful.  Some things came up and we wouldn’t have it ready until like two seconds before it went live.”

Even though it was at times stressful, the experience to help with a live broadcast for all the students involved was something might prepare them well for their future communications careers.

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