Elon News Network investigates millennial perspective at RNC, DNC  

Members of the Elon News Network, the merged student news organization of The Pendulum and Elon Local News, attended the July 2016 national conventions, filing original content from Cleveland and Philadelphia. The joint election coverage highlighted a perspective often overlooked by national media outlets: millennial voters.

Beginning this fall, The Pendulum and Elon Local News will work in a converged newsroom, bringing together the traditional print and broadcast platforms. While the new partnership has been branded the Elon News Network (ENN), both student media outlets will continue to use their established names in their respective mediums.

As part of the new mixed media initiative, Tommy Hamzik ’17, Paige Pauroso ’17 and Kailey Tracy ’17 traveled to Cleveland July 18-21 to cover the Republican National Convention. A week later, Caroline Hartshorn ’18 and Jackie Pascale ’18 continued ENN’s election coverage, reporting at the Democratic National Convention July 25-28 in Philadelphia. Pascale also served as a production assistant/runner for national cable news outlet CNN. The junior supported the station’s general production and photo desk staffs.

While in Cleveland, Hamzik, Pauroso and Tracy interviewed young people in and around the convention, covered the RNC Youth Caucus, compiled social media content about protests and watched speeches by the likes of Ted Cruz, Mike Pence and Donald Drumpf. A full compilation of ENN’s RNC coverage is available on The Pendulum and ELN’s websites.

​​“While there, we focused more on millennials and college students’ perspectives,” said Hamzik, ENN executive editor. “You can tell by looking at our stories that we pushed those angles as opposed to the what all the national people were writing.”

In Philadelphia, Hartshorn and Pascale posted regularly on social media and continued ENN’s coverage of millennials in attendance, including an interview with Elon senior Chris Edwards, an invited guest of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. Hartshorn and Pascale also published an article on 19-year-old John Easterling, a North Carolina delegate.

“I’m incredibly proud of the work ENN produced in Cleveland and Philadelphia, and how we put a focus on our audience to gather content across all platforms,” said Hamzik. “Our coverage exemplified the mobile-first vision we have for our merged newsroom and how we’ll continue to serve the Elon community as Elon News Network.”