Thursday, November 08, 2012

[145] Depend on MTSU student journalists for 2012 election-night coverage


FOR RELEASE: Nov. 6, 2012
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Stephan Foust, stephan.foust@mtsu.edu or 615-898-2337 


MURFREESBORO — Want fresh, unbiased, no-pundits-allowed live coverage of the 2012 election? You have two new choices on Election Day: MT10-HD and http://vote2012.mtsusidelines.com.

MTSU student journalists are teaming up today in the Center for Innovation in Media for unprecedented live coverage of local, state and national races.

They’ll be offering on-air updates at the student TV station, online at the student newspaper, radio simulcasts on WMTS-FM and WMOT-FM and at a special election-night party in the new Student Union Building’s ballrooms.

It all starts at 4 p.m. today, when the Center’s election viewing party, co-sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, Student Programming and Activities, the University Honors College and the American Democracy Project, gets under way in ballrooms A and B (rooms 250A and 250B).

MTSU students and faculty will be able to eat for free while watching the election unfold on big-screen televisions.

Beginning at 5 p.m., MT10 will be reporting live from a special set in the SUB ballroom, part of a three-hour broadcast that will be anchored in the Center for Innovation’s Studio 2. MT10 staffers and students from Electronic Media Production and Electronic Media Journalism classes all will be at the heart of the action.

Reporters in the field, including the Student Union, will send updates to the news anchors, and election results will air in real time on MT10, which broadcasts locally on Rutherford County Comcast Channel 10 and online at www.mt10tv.com, until 8 p.m.

Coverage will be simultaneously broadcast during local cutaways on both WMTS-FM 88.3, the student radio station, and WMOT-FM 89.5, MTSU’s National Public Radio station. WMTS will follow the simulcast with a live two-hour election news, analysis and talk show of its own.

“The news team will utilize the full resources of the Center for Innovation in Media, including the robotic-green screen studio and the converged newsroom, popularly known as ‘The Egg,’” said center director Stephan Foust.

Also in the Center, inside the Bragg Mass Communication Building, Sidelines staffers will be updating the election website, http://vote2012.mtsusidelines.com, with similar breaking coverage, and putting together a special 24-page election edition of the newspaper.

“Sidelines reporters will be hard at work in the center and out on location, including the viewing party, keeping the Vote2012 website up-to-date with the latest information and preparing the comprehensive print version of the paper that will be on newsstands early tomorrow (Wednesday).”

The student journalists teamed up earlier this semester for breaking daily coverage of the Associated Press Media Editors national conference in Nashville, providing all the multimedia content for the APME blog, a daily video report and a special tabloid.

The APME recognized the Center for Innovation in Media this year for its efforts to converge MTSU student media and foster collaboration across media platforms.

Like the APME project, MTSU seniors Becca Andrews and Michelle Potts are coordinating election-night news coverage. Andrews is Sidelines editor-in-chief, and Potts is MT10 news director.

All this combined far exceeds anything student media have attempted in past elections,” Foust said, “and students, advisers and faculty are excited by the possibilities. We want the entire campus community to be part of it.”

To watch the election unfold or for more information, visit http://vote2012.mtsusidelines.com.

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MTSU is committed to developing a community devoted to learning, growth and service. We hold these values dear, and there’s a simple phrase that conveys them:  “I am True Blue.” Learn more at www.mtsu.edu/trueblue. For MTSU news anytime, visit www.MTSUNews.com.


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