Covering The Election During a Pandemic As A Student Journalist
When you’re a journalist, Election Day is different—especially if it’s your first time covering it. In my political reporting class, we’ve been preparing for this day like it’s Christmas. Throughout this semester, I’ve covered the presidential election in one of the most hotly contested counties in Pennsylvania and the local congressional race in New York’s 24th district. I also covered the policy differences between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump regarding Puerto Rico. Professionally, I felt prepared. But emotionally? Not even close.
This Nov. 3. was the first time I had the right to vote for president of the United States. That right was all because of a fluke—my current address. When I lived in Puerto Rico, I wasn’t eligible to vote for president. Now, living in New York, I valued my vote more than ever before. I cast my ballot thinking of the millions of Puerto Ricans on my island who aren’t included in the process of choosing the next president. I really struggled with my emotions on Election Day, but I still had to do my job. I had to inform the public.
Election Day was anticlimactic. I had class all day and then worked at night with The Newshouse covering the Katko-Balter race, one of the most hotly contested races for Congress in the country. Things looked different this year, because instead of heading to campaign headquarters, I covered it from home and waited on Zoom for victory speeches that never came. The race was dragged out because of delays in absentee ballot counting. For over a week we waited for results, amidst lawsuits and candidates refusing to concede. It was a thrill to get unexpected updates directly from the campaigns, tracking absentee ballot counting, and having to write articles in the spur of the moment. My work covering the Katko-Balter race was a welcome and exciting distraction that helped me manage my anxiety somewhat.
For some of my classmates, the waiting and wondering were not as exciting as they were for me. Cyera Williams, a broadcast and digital journalism master’s student, produced an Election Night newscast with two other BDJ students. The delays in results and uncertainty from the campaigns made it harder for them to produce their newscast by deadline and Williams said she learned she didn’t want to be a political reporter.
“Having a level of uncertainty really turned me off from politics, turned me off from covering another election if I don’t have to,” Williams said.
Williams, 21, is from Connecticut and she said the distance from home also made her anxious, because she was trying to keep up with her hometown’s local races.
“If I can tell young journalists one thing as far as covering the election is to have a self-care day right before or right after so you don’t lose your sanity,” Williams said. “You can get so caught up in moving fast, trying to meet deadlines, trying to make sure the numbers are right but you forget about your mental health.”
While Williams’ Election Day was a little more chaotic, Kaitlyn Tambasco, 22, had a more quiet day editing articles while results came in. Tambasco, a magazine, newspaper, and online journalism graduate student, was an editor for Democracy in Action on Nov. 3. DIA is a project that places students at polling places on Election Day to report on voters. Tambasco also reported on mail-in ballots in Onondaga County prior to the election and she said journalistic work on the election helped her become more informed.
“I think I felt a lot more engaged in this election than I did four years ago,” Tambasco said. “I think for that reason because I got the opportunity to write about it and I got the opportunity to at least edit an article for it.”
Tambasco said the election taught her not to jump to conclusions and be more patient with results. One thing these three grad students have in common is that we struggled with anxiety in the days leading up to and after the election.
There is a moral to this story: everyone will have different experiences on Election Day as a student journalist. It might be your favorite day of the year or one of the most stressful. Politics can weigh a lot on a regular citizen. If you’re a journalist, that weight is doubled because you have a responsibility to digest the pounds of information that are being thrown at you and report. Covering an election is the best way to find out if political reporting is the beat for you. That’s why I think every journalist should cover at least one election. It might be thrilling or excruciating, but I guarantee you’ll learn something about yourself as the polls close.
