Less than two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the 2024 production of Hofstra Votes LIVE. Hofstra Votes LIVE is Hofstra University’s four-hour live election coverage that airs on election night. The production is student-run and can be streamed on various platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Hofstra University Channel 32.2 and WRHU 88.7FM Radio Hofstra University. As a current sophomore, this was the first year I was able to join the HVL team and my role in this year’s production was a staff writer.
My Role as a staff writer
As a staff writer, I was part of a team of other writers and researchers who worked in the newsroom during the HVL production. My team was responsible for researching and writing headline stories throughout the broadcast on election night. I was paired up with two researchers that would find headline stories and share the information with me. As the writer, my job was to write out 30 second headline stories using the research given to me. These stories were submitted to be used by anchors and live reporters on air throughout the broadcast. Our newsroom team covered both national and regional news stories and had to keep up with breaking news as the night went on. There were varied deadlines throughout the night for me to submit my stories. I was given 30 minutes for some stories and less than 10 minutes for others.
My experience as a staff writer was exciting and helped strengthen my news writing skills. I felt the pressure at times with only having a few minutes to write out a headline story but it was exhilarating. I enjoyed the opportunity to work with others I had not worked with prior to HVL. As the broadcast went on and I was pumping out stories, I felt it became easier to keep my writing clear and concise. I was able to find a flow and pattern to my news writing.
why i joined the hvl team
At the beginning of the semester, I attended an informational session for Hofstra Votes LIVE and immediately knew I wanted to apply. The opportunity to work in a newsroom for a production that operates in the way a professional news outlet would is what drew me in. As a journalism major, I saw HVL as the perfect opportunity to experience what it would be like to work in a professional newsroom. My role as a staff writer aligned with some of my career goals as a journalism student and greatly added to my experience as a budding journalist. Being that 2024 is a presidential election year and the only presidential election during my time as an undergraduate student, I felt that HVL would be a huge opportunity for me. Covering the presidential election at the major capacity that HVL does was something I wanted to participate in before graduating from Hofstra.
I benefitted from being able to work with new people and gain insight and feedback from them. Some of the students I was working with are current juniors or seniors and I was able to learn from them through this production. I appreciate that HVL is student-run because it becomes a collaborative effort between all of the students participating. I am truly grateful that I was able to be a part of this team and overall experience.
This year’s production of Hofstra Votes LIVE can currently be streamed on the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication YouTube channel.