Faculty cover presidential election

USC Annenberg journalism professors Roberto Suro, Marc CooperJudy Muller and Richard Reeves, and Norman Lear Center director Martin Kaplan are all covering the 2008 election in different ways.

Suro worked at Univisión’s Miami headquarters where he contributed to regular news broadcasts and the Feb. 5 election night special. He did both on-air reporting and helped run the analysis desk. From the Univisión studio he also did a live commentary for an election night special by the BBC.

Cooper is the editorial director for the Huffington Post's OffTheBus.net, where he has been discussing and will continue to analyze election trends and news. (Read Cooper's Jan. 27 blog entry about the Clintons, as well as Republican debate: Battle over conservative credentials, Obama woos Latino voters and Democratic debate: Obama and Clinton play it safe.)

Muller conducted a live class that served as a focus group discussion during award-winning broadcast journalist Dan Rather's live reporting at USC Annenberg on election night. (Find out more about Rather's election night coverage at USC Annenberg.)

Reeves' syndicated column has focused heavily on election coverage. In a Jan. 25 column, Reeves wrote: "We are not going to know more about such things until people actually vote. But with the field we have now, including a Mormon, an Italian and an aggressive evangelical, we will be analyzing the 2008 election for years because it will hold a mirror up to a very new America. Perhaps a better one than we think."

Kaplan, who holds the Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, led a town hall discussion on Feb. 1 at the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities about the campaign season now under way. The eventwas held at USC's University Club at noon. In a conversation reported in the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia, Kaplan spoke about the inevitable impact of entertainment on the current presidential primary campaigns and elections in the U.S. He also continues to blog about politics and the election on the Huffington Post.