*Editor’s Note- I was in the William Allen White School of Journalism building on Election Night 2020, to work on a Good Evening KU show for one of my classes. My job was to be the talent on the first of two sections with stories about the election. This is my refelction and telling of that night.

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Hearts are thumping as fingers fly across the keyboards of computers. Wild, reckless college students tamed into momentary maturity as they fight to have a voice. Fight to speak in a way that keeps our personal opinion out of the story. That’s the name of the game in this business. News isn’t news if it only is true for a small population. 

We assemble, a small team of 5 students, working twice as hard without the other half of our crew, who’ve conveniently become unavailable. 

We discuss, 5 mouths filled with ideas being spit into the center of the table, and grabbed up by whoever has the least to do. What do we discuss? Social media? Celebrity influence? The results? What we’ll know later? How the counting will work? Who thinks what about who? What little we know so far?

It is 3:45, and we have no major news to report. We are the beginner class, the underclassmen learning the tricks of the trade. We are the opener to the main show which will become a collective piece of art, put together by the ones who’ve been studying, and learning and practicing for years to get to cover something this major. It is their story to tell because they can tell it better. We’re just lucky we get to see it happen.

But unrelenting, we refuse to disperse, growing closer together, and working harder as panic rises the time to air ticks down. Fingers are cramping from the excessive typing, prayers are increasing in emotion as the wifi stalls, as new requests come in about what we can and can not include, about what we have to include, with what we want to include all as we try to put together something meaningful, that makes sense. 

Four of us know what we’re doing. We’ve done our work ahead of time. We know the stakes and understand how this works, why this works, why this matters, and how we’re going to make it count. But one guy has his own agenda. Trying to sneak in a plug for a candidate, trying to redirect the conversation. I guess professionalism doesn’t run through all. Neither does the desire to be educated because with  25 minutes to air, and 10 minutes until my script, media and credits are due, he asks what the electoral college is, and what it means when a state is red or blue. Some learn at the moment, others aren’t in the moment until they learn. 

I have so much to write, so much to put together. I need a three-minute speaking peace, which usually takes about 30 minutes to write, and eight pieces of media, which usually takes about 15 minutes to locate, and credits for the information, which takes 5 minutes to do. I have an hour’s worth of work to do in 25 minutes. I need to shut these distractions out. To let me go and anchor only the slightest bit into the general conversation. 

I detach from the moment. The voices of my fellow journalists fade into the background, the concentration I have set in and all my efforts are dialed to 10. I am not going to give up now. And in a moment, the thrill of where I am, who I’m with, and what I’m doing overwhelms me. 

I can’t do this. I am an overworked, underfed, exhausted college freshman competing with students who’ve been perfecting their craft for years. I am only a girl with a keyboard, an assignment, and a few words. How can I make a difference here? Why should I care? So few people watch our show. Besides, it’s only a student-run show, no one will take us seriously. There are professionals out there, let them deal with this. Let them deal with the madness, and let me relax for a moment, something I’ve gone a long time without doing. 

But… I want to be that professional. I want to tell this story, even if it is in the smallest of ways. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I have always yearned to reach people, to tell them stories, to educate them. And in a moment, the thrill of where I am, who I’m with, and what I’m doing inspires me. I am a woman, in the year 2020. I am a student on a college campus and a journalist who has the opportunity of a lifetime. To tell an important story with my peers, to reach our minuscule audience and give them a little bit of information they may not have known. Yes, I am surrounded by people who have far more knowledge and experience than me, but I am surrounded by people who have far more knowledge and experience than me. This is my chance to learn, to adapt, to preserve, and to write an amazing story. 

Crap. 

I have 5 minutes until we go live and I have not yet sent the pictures, the credits, or the blurb we will read. 

4 minutes, my fingers fly over the keyboard, I cuss in frustration as the loading wheel turns, and turns, and turns, and then- yes! (thank god) it disappears. 

3 minutes, run to the control room, check-in with the tech directors, – “no this picture goes first when I say “white house” and this one is from CBS, I didn’t have time to credit it”

2 minutes, check in with our producer -“here is the natural break in the topic so you can give the second half to me to say… yes right there”

1 minute, my teacher frantically waving at me to “Get in the studio now Anika. WAIT, here is your mic, put it on now, go!”

30 seconds, mask off, smooth out hair

10 seconds, “Why isn’t the teleprompter pulled up?” “I don’t know! We need it to go live, crap, I didn’t get a chance to-” 

5 seconds, “Oh here it comes now. Have you seen any of the script besides what you wrote? Cuz I haven’t.”

3 seconds, “Wait are you speaking first, or am I? 

2 seconds, “Where do I look?”

1second…. and we’re live! 

WAIT I’M- 

“Hello and welcome back to this week’s edition of Good Evening KU. Our show will look a little bit different today…..” 

So this is what it’s like in the professional world. Absolute chaos. Panic setting in while people, ideas, and orders fly around like gnats. Butting in, never really going away. And somehow, despite all the irritation, we get it figured out. It all turns out okay in the end. 

We are a beginner class. But we worked. And we got it done. Mostly. And we get praise for our efforts from our producer, our teacher, the professors in the building, even the upperclassmen look impressed (though they would never actually admit that). 

And we are proud of our work. We have made something that is rough around the edges, and fairly choppy, but successful. We have made a big difference. And despite my stomach growling, my parched throat, the two and a half hours in that tiny college studio, and the stress of the evening growing as the election ramps up, I am proud. I just did that. I learned. I got the experience that I wanted, and at KU I have gotten an experience unlike any other. 

I can’t wait to spend the rest of my college career in the walls of the William Allen White School of Journalism.