Eleven Lipscomb students spent Tuesday evening at the WSMV studios, where they collected poll results from Tennessee counties to help in the televised news coverage of the heated elections. They were asked by WSMV’s Belinda Coffee to assist the regular news team by making phone calls to election results from each county.
The students began the evening by getting a quick tour of the studio and then they received instructions on how to make the calls. While the task was simple, the students learned important details on the relationship between politics and communications.
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Leah Raich, a junior public relations major from Memphis, said she enjoyed the lessons learned.
“This experience has really exposed me to technicalities that come with not only reporting but with preparing information for the air,” Raich said.
Kathryn McKinley, a sophomore public leadership major from McMinnville, Tenn., said the experience exposed her to some of the ins and outs of the broadcast news industry.
“You always hear people say a lot goes on behind the scenes, and I didn’t realize how true that was until this experience,” McKinley said.
Dasha Tammark, a junior mass communication major from Okinawa, Japan, said the exercise — which was sort of a “field trip” by members of COMMA (Communication Majors and Minors Association) — offered up a lesson in American politics.
“Being from Japan I know very little about politics,” Tammark said. “This experience has made me want to be more involved with politics and just generally more aware of what’s going on.”