Election Night in the Newsroom
Last night, the Stony Brook University J-School covered election night — one of the most excitingly chaotic nights in the journalism world.
As a field reporter, I went out with a shooter to cover the Black Womyn’s Weekend march to the polls. Take a look at my broadcast package, which was posted with the rest of the J-School’s election coverage on www.sbvotes.com, and read my article underneath!
Womyns Weekend vote from Stony Brook School of Journalism on Vimeo.
By Arielle Dollinger
Two hundred green chairs. A podium. Election day.
The scene was set and sixty-something faces gathered in the Stony Brook University Student Union ballroom, at the command of Kathleen Gay, before their march to the Student Activities Center to vote in the presidential election.
Gay is the president of Black Womyn’s Weekend – a group founded in 1978, by both women and men, which meets weekly to discuss issues that affect women of color. This year, after an alum proposed the idea, the group decided to vote together.
“This is the first time anything has ever been done like this on the Stony Brook campus, you know, like a mass voting,” Gay said. “We can’t expect our concerns to be heard if we don’t voice them for ourselves.”
And the concerns of each member of the group are different. At meetings, members explore issues that affect women of color and women in general, such as abortion and women’s rights to their own bodies. The discussions are not politically charged, but those who came out to vote with the group said that voting was important to them.
“I think civic engagement is important for anyone as a citizen, and it’s not just important, but it is vital,” said Chaylice McDonald, a sister of the Student African American Brotherhood who spoke to the group before its trip to the polls. “It is your duty, it is your job, it is the price you pay – what a wonderful price to pay, to live in this nation, because it’s not really a price at all.”
McDonald was one of many first-time voters in the group. She addressed those in the ballroom having already voted herself, and told her audience it is important “to be involved in which way the nation is shaped, how it works, the way that your nation takes care of you and you take care of it.”
“I’d never felt so strong and powerful, and capable,” McDonald said of voting. “And the future looked bright when I stepped out of the doors because I knew it was mine. Like, I felt ownership of everything that was going to come to be. It was a very powerful feeling.”
Kayla Henry, a member of the organization, was also among the first-time voters. She, too, said she felt empowered.
“My friend, we were talking as soon as I came out of the poll, and she was like, she just wanted to jump up and click her heels, it was such a great feeling,” Henry said.