This Crazy Race

By Cole Sullivan ‘18

“Florida is too close to call”

Those were the words the Executive Editor of Annenberg’s Media Center greeted me with as I exited the television studio. “Go get some food,” he said. “It’s going to be a long night.”

And a long night it was. 

After weeks and weeks of intense planning, I never expected how this election night would end…but everyone (besides perhaps this one guy in Georgia) already knows that part of the story.

Here’s the part of the story you don’t know.

For me, it began at a home game at the Coliseum in early October. That’s when Ali Main, the political director for the student media outlet at USC’s journalism school asked me if I wanted to help anchor their Election Night coverage.

Anyone who reads this blog frequently knows that I’m a bit of a political nerd, so of course I leapt at the opportunity. To announce the next President of the United States on air has been a dream of mine ever since I was a little kid watching Wolf Blitzer on CNN and given the unpredictable, fascinating nature of this election, it would be an even cooler opportunity.

Our directors and lead producer extraordinaire planning the weekend before.

Accepting that position meant I felt like I had some responsibility to help plan our election coverage. I pitched in to help recruit volunteers, obtain necessary equipment, find information on the candidates and generally do whatever was needed to get our ambitious coverage plan together.

Executive Editor Kevin posing with the list of gear needed for our 10 live shot locations and 13 reporters in the field. 

And ambitious it was. By Election Day, we had 100 student volunteers in our Annenberg newsroom and at 10 candidate watch party locations across Los Angeles. We had articles on our website updated from 8am, hundreds of graphics ready to go, radio live hits every hour on KXSC after the polls closed, and an zealous broadcast plan to go live at 5pm…and stay on air until the race was called.

It was a team effort—a not just a team of journalism students. We had business students, comm…every major you can imagine! As part of Annenberg Media’s commitment to cover the school, we seek out volunteers from every major! If you’re interested in getting involved, all you have to do is come to our open house at the start of the semester. 

We covered the Presidential race, of course, but also the California senate race, propositions on the ballot and other important races across the country—as well as international reaction to the results. We Skyped in students from as far away as Seoul, South Korea and spoke with undergrads at the watch party in Annenberg hall. We had expert guests, student panels and our very own “decision desk” monitoring results as they came in.

I spent more time here in the Annenberg newsroom planning than I did in my own house in the week leading up to November 8th. 

And all of that took a lot of planning. A lot. In the week leading up to Tuesday night, I spend more time in Annenberg than I did in my own house. We were there until the wee hours of the morning, even on weekends (with the exception of Gameday…because the Trojans come first). The planning itself was grueling and tough and I am so incredibly proud of our team for pulling everything together. We had our disagreements, but at the end of the day, our coverage was better for it.

My lovely co-anchor Aden.

So finally, after all that planning, it was time for polls to start closing. Me and my wonderful co-anchor Aden were in place in our secondary studio (along with 4 producers and crew members to pull off the fantastical technical feat the broadcast would require) and went live right at 5pm.

We immediately were off, calling races as soon as polls closed. At first it was nothing surprising (“Trump wins Kentucky” and “Clinton grabs the 3 electoral votes in Vermont”) and that first hour went off largely without a hitch.

It wasn’t until Aden and my successful hand-off to the anchor team of our regular nightly newscast that I exited the studio and spotted one of the Executive Editors concentrating on his computer. He had a map of Florida pulled up, with counties colored red and blue…and was hitting refresh. “Clinton isn’t pulling the numbers she needs to from Miami-Dade” he said.

All smiles in between broadcasts when our graphics editor and my co-anchor discover the Chipotle guac stash.  

That’s when I knew something unusual was going to happen. And for the first time, in all the weeks of planning, I quickly typed up a draft of what I was going to say if Donald Trump won the Presidency—something almost every poll, pundit and political said was impossible:

“Capitalizing on a strong anti-establishment theme, in a STUNNING upset DONALD TRUMP will be the 45th president of the united states.

The real estate mogul who had come back from the ashes before in the business world has now done it politically.

Despite scandals and gaffes that would’ve sunk any other politician’s campaign, Donald Trump has beaten the odds and become the 45th president of the united states.” —My pre-written script, in case Trump won the Presidency. 

Aden and I started our continuing marathon coverage again at 7pm with a slew of new races called. But still not Florida. Nor North Carolina, Ohio, or Pennsylvania. For the first time on air, I used the word “surprising.” If Clinton was going to win by the margin she was projected to, she should already have had those states on lock.

Soon, “surprising” was upgraded to “shocking” as I heard our incredible lead producer say two words in my ear: Trump. Florida.  

And from that point on, it’s almost all a blur. Calling race after race in state after state for Donald Trump with only brief breaks to watch stunning live video from our reporters in the field of helicopters bringing ballots to be counted, Loretta Sanchez refusing to concede or Mayor Eric Garcetti giving a mournful eulogy to the Clinton campaign.  

Watching Trump’s victory speech from the anchor desk around 12 am after weeks of planning and hours of live TV. 

In all, I was on air—with neither script nor commercial break—for six and a half hours on Tuesday. Our coverage began with Clinton winning Vermont and it ended with President-elect Trump giving a victory speech in New York.

A small portion of the amazing team that managed our extensive Election Night coverage. 

Afterward, the weight of weeks of worry over our coverage lifted off our shoulders. Our remaining crew took photos and made somber toasts: to a job incredibly well done and a silent prayer for the future of our country.

Read more about Annenberg students’ coverage of Election Night 2016.

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Trojans 360 is USC’s official student-run blog. Content created by students, for students.