Bedfordshire journalism students work through the night for US Election

University of Bedfordshire journalism students worked through the night reporting the results of this week’s historic US Presidential Election.

The 15 strong team – made up of both undergraduates and postgraduates from a range of journalism courses – joined forces to report the unfolding events for their own news website and for the University’s community radio station RadioLab 97.1FM.

The plan was the idea of second year Broadcast Journalism students led by Ian Child and Danie Gooch.

The students reported for duty at 8.30pm and worked solidly through until 7.30am the following morning by which time it was crystal clear that Donald Trump had won an extraordinary victory.

The journalism students followed the ups and downs of the two presidential candidates, calculating predictions from polls, reporting and writing live stories as each state’s results were revealed.

First year sports journalism student Jake Nichol who was one of the students leading the number crunching said the experience was ‘brilliant’.

Preparations had begun weeks earlier when the team were briefed by the University’s American political specialist Mark Margaretten, who joined them on the night.

Coverage was supervised by former BBC journalists turned lecturers Kate Ironside and Adrian Warner and by RadioLab Manager Terry Lee.

Senior journalism lecturer Kate Ironside, said: “The great advantage of events like this is that students take on a serious reporting job, doing it in real time, keeping pace with the professionals.

“They produced their own results service, analysis and commentary on an extraordinary election.”

The broadcast journalism students are now editing a special video of the night.