Go Blue Raiders
After more than five months of planning for Election Day 2012 live coverage, the hard work paid off. Viewers of MT10-HD, the student TV station, as well as the audience for vote2012.mtsusidelines.com, WMOT 89.5-FM and WMTS 88.3-FM and those attending a special election-night party Nov. 6 in the new Student Union Building’s ballrooms, watched MTSU journalists and technicians in action on election night. Read more about their efforts at mtsunews.com/vote-2012-election-night.
Sophomore EMC major Ashlyn Bourque, standing at left, stage manager for the MT10-HD Vote2012 coverage, watches as Kelsey Lebechuck gives a live cue to panelists Ken Blake, associate professor of journalism and director of the MTSU Poll; sophomore psychology major Hailey Lawson, co-captain of the MTSU Debate Team; Dr. Patrick Richey, professor of communication studies and debate team adviser; and freshman criminal justice major Stephen Duke. (MTSU photos by Darby Campbell)
MTSU student journalists know precisely what their professional counterparts know: You’d better have a Plan B.
More than five months of planning for Election Day 2012 live coverage went out the window in just a few hours Nov. 5, thanks to a campus power outage that shut down operations for nearly a day and a half in the Center for Innovation in Media.
Viewers of MT10-HD, the student TV station, as well as an online audience and the audience for WMOT 89.5-FM and WMTS 88.3-FM and those attending a special election-night party Tuesday in the new Student Union Building’s ballrooms, however, were none the wiser.
“We’ve been meeting since July to plan our coverage, and then on Oct. 5, the power went out and we blew a breaker (in the Bragg Mass Communication Building),” explained center director Stephan Foust.
“We were dead in the water. Five months’ planning was out the window. We had to have a Plan B. And it was a great experience for the students.”
University maintenance and information-technology crews scrambled to get the center’s operations back online after power came back on Monday, overnighting replacement equipment from California and restoring systems in time to let the students go back to their Plan A.
“I am so proud of them,” Foust said as students prepared to go live as polls began to close around the nation.
“This operation had the feel of a professional project from the get-go. They’re ready for just about anything. They came prepared to every meeting and they are as professional as anyone can be.”
Senior Phillip Dixon, left, works as mobile technical director for the MT10-HD election-night coverage as senior Alex Gibson directs operations in MTSU’s Mobile Production Truck.
MT10 reported live from a special set in the SUB ballroom, part of a three-hour broadcast anchored in the Center for Innovation’s Studio 2.
MT10 staffers, engineers from the Department of Electronic Media Communication and students from Electronic Media Production, Electronic Media Journalism and journalism reporting classes all were at the heart of the action. Reporters in the field sent updates to the news anchors.
Election results aired in real time on MT10, which broadcasts locally on Rutherford County Comcast Channel 10 and online at www.mt10tv.com, until 9 p.m.
Coverage was 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 followed the simulcast with a live two-hour election news, analysis and talk show of its own.
The election-night viewing party drew hundreds of enthusiastic MTSU students, faculty, staff and neighbors to watch events unfold on the new Student Union’s big-screen televisions.
The event was co-sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, Student Programming and Activities, the University Honors College and the American Democracy Project. Production Services crews helped prepare the special MT10 set.
“This is the kind of problem you want to have,” said Rich Kershaw, director of student programming and activities at MTSU, as he watched the ballroom crowd elbow their way into prime TV-watching spots and discuss the election results.
“It’s a great collaboration between academics and student affairs to put on a great event. It’s also great that our MT10 is the only station that’s actually talking to real people on the street, people who’ve actually voted.”
Sidelines staffers updated their election website throughout the evening and published a special 24-page election edition of the newspaper Nov. 7.
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 coordinated 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 wanted the entire campus community to be part of it.”
You can watch a video on the coverage below.
— Gina E. Fann (Gina.Fann@mtsu.edu)
Republicans and Democrats agree on at least one thing in Tennessee: The stalemate in Washington probably will continue after the 2012 election.
Dr. Ken Blake
Nearly half (47 percent) of the state’s likely voters think a stalemate between Democrats and Republicans in Washington is likelier after the election than cooperation between the two political parties.
Only a fourth or so (28 percent) think the two parties will cooperate, and another fourth (24 percent) don’t know which is likelier.
The rest give no answer, according to the fall poll by Middle Tennessee State University.
“Attitudes may soften at least temporarily after the election, when talk tends to turn toward unity and bipartisanship,” said Dr. Ken Blake, director of the MTSU Poll. “But going into the election, relatively few Tennessee voters think Republicans and Democrats will be willing to negotiate once the ballots are counted.”
Predictions of a stalemate prevail regardless of party affiliation. Over half (53 percent) of Democrats predict a stalemate, but so do a statistically identical 46 percent of independents and 46 percent of Republicans. Within each political group, those who foresee a stalemate outnumber those who don’t.
The possibility of a stalemate seems higher, though, to Tennessee voters who are focused on unemployment, the federal budget deficit, the stock market and housing costs. About half of the voters who consider these the most important issues in the election predict a stalemate after the election. By comparison, closer to 40 percent of Tennessee voters focused on taxes and the price of gasoline think there will be a stalemate after the election.
Dr. Jason Reineke
“Voters who are focused on macroeconomic issues like the deficit seem more pessimistic about post-election cooperation in Washington than those who are concerned with microeconomic issues like the price of gasoline,” said Dr. Jason Reineke, associate director of the MTSU Poll.
Meanwhile, a 43 percent plurality of likely voters say Romney has been more honest over the course of the campaign than Obama has. Only about a quarter (25 percent) say Obama has been more honest than Romney has. Eleven percent say both have been generally honest, while 13 percent say both have been generally dishonest.
Aside from the obvious tendency of voters to consider their preferred candidate more honest than the other candidate, the biggest factor behind these assessments seems to be which national television news outlet one watches most often.
Frequent Fox News viewers overwhelmingly (83 percent) consider Romney the more honest candidate. But Obama is seen as more honest by a majority (64 percent) of MSNBC viewers and pluralities of those who watch CNN (47 percent) and ABC (44 percent). Viewers of NBC and CBS have relatively mixed views about who is most honest.
About the MTSU Poll
Conducted by telephone Oct. 16-21, 2012, by Issues and Answers Network Inc., the poll completed 650 interviews with randomly selected registered voters in Tennessee. The poll has an error margin of plus or minus four percentage points at the 95 percent level of confidence.
In order to obtain a representative sample of respondents, data were collected using a mix of landline and cell phones. Additionally, quotas were placed on landline and cell phones to ensure a proper mix of the two groups. The sample contained only registered voters and was representative of the state population.
Interviews averaged 12 minutes in length. Weights were applied to the data to match the sample’s gender and race proportions to those seen in exit poll data from the 2008 election in Tennessee. However, a comparison of results with and without the weights showed little difference.
The poll defined “likely voters” as registered voters who had voted already or who had either voted in the 2010 governor’s race in Tennessee and/or described themselves as “very likely” to cast a vote in the upcoming presidential election.
The results reported are for the 609 poll respondents who met the likely voter criteria.
All poll results are available on the MTSU Poll website, www.mtsusurveygroup.org.
With early voting under way and the Nov. 6 Election Day approaching, the MTSU campus will provide multiple opportunities for those looking to satisfy their political cravings.
Here’s a summary of upcoming university-sponsored events related to the election. More events will be added to this list as needed; check back periodically for updates.
* Nov. 5-6 screenings of “Election”: Raider Entertainment is sponsoring two free public screenings of director Alexander Payne’s political satire “Election,” starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick, on Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 5 and 6.
The 1999 film will be shown in the Student Union Video Theater at 8 p.m. Nov. 5 and 3 p.m. Nov. 6.
You can learn more about the special screening at http://mtsu.edu/events/election.php.
* Nov. 6 student-sponsored election night viewing party: MTSU’s Center for Innovation in Media, College of Liberal Arts, Raider Entertainment, the University Honors College and the American Democracy Project are sponsoring “Vote 2012: Election Night Viewing Party” on Tuesday, Nov. 6, beginning at 5 p.m. in the Student Union Ballroom.
Viewers can enjoy free food and watch live, up-to-the-minute coverage from the university’s student TV station, MT-10, in the ballroom along with other local and national broadcasts and social media streams.
Read more about the event at http://mtsu.edu/events/electionnight.php. Sidelines, MTSU’s student newspaper, also will be updating election coverage at http://vote2012.mtsusidelines.com.
* Online exhibit featuring political jingles: The Albert Gore Research Center and the Center for Popular Music at MTSU have collaborated to present an online exhibit on “The History of Political Songs and Jingles in Tennessee.”
The exhibit features multiple sections such as “Brief History of Political Songs,” “Early Campaign Songs for Presidents from Tennessee” and “Politics and Music in Tennessee,” among others.
You can learn more about the exhibit at http://gorecenter.mtsu.edu/Political_Jingles/PoliticalJingles.shtml.
* MTSU Poll results are out!: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will likely take Tennessee. But by how much? Results from this annual statewide survey were released Saturday, Oct. 27. Read more at http://mtsunews.com/mtsu-poll-fall-2012/.
