Two Lafayette College classes partnered this semester with PBS39, the Lehigh Valley’s public broadcasting services station, to produce two 30-minute episodes on the upcoming presidential election. Both episodes — “Democracy at the Edge of AI” and “Campus Crossroads: Battle of the Ballot” — aired to up to 3.5 million households on Wednesday and Thursday.
Each episode was comprised of multiple student-produced segments, exploring a variety of topics. “Democracy at the Edge of AI” analyzed artificial intelligence’s impact on political campaigns for the 2024 presidential election. “Campus Crossroads: Battle of the Ballot” studied differing political views of Lafayette students on campus.
Mark Crain, a professor of political economy, and Kathleen Parrish, an English lecturer, oversaw the students throughout the process. The students participating were members of Crain’s “Introduction to Policy Studies” class and Parrish’s “Advanced Journalistic Writing” class.
The students spent roughly one month crafting the segments.
Around 80 people were featured in student-led interviews for the project, according to Crain, a tally including Lafayette students, faculty and alumni.
Javier Diaz, the director of production at PBS39, said the project allowed him to grasp Lafayette students’ passion for national and worldwide issues.
“Young people get a bad rap a lot of times as not being engaged or knowledgeable about what’s going on,” Diaz said. “I hope hearing from so many Lafayette students makes people realize that that’s not necessarily the case. There are a lot of students that are engaged politically and socially and care about what’s going on.”
PBS39 filmed interviews on campus for four days in October. Two students, Bridget Cote ‘26 and Alexandra Waldman ‘26, were hosts of the various segments and filmed at the PBS studio in Bethlehem on Monday.
“I expected myself to look more nervous than I was,” Cote said of the experience.
Nate Rashkind ‘26, who gained some previous broadcast journalism experience during a gap year job, said the biggest challenge of this project was finding students willing to share their political views.
“People are entitled to not participate if they don’t want to, and I understand it’s an uncomfortable topic, but I was surprised that no one wanted to come forward as soon as the cameras came out,” he said. “But in private, they were willing to offer comments.”
While Crain has partnered with PBS nearly every two years since 2006, this was Parrish’s first time collaborating on the project.
“Initially we were going to produce an online voter’s guide, and then when this came along, we had to pivot and focus entirely on producing these segments,” Parrish said. “It’s been a steep learning curve.”
“We’re doing it in the real world and people are going to get to see and appreciate students’ work,” she continued.
This year’s production moved at a faster rate than previous years due to uncertainty about whether the project had funds in the first place.
“An alum of the college happened to be on campus during the first week of class and she said ‘How’s the broadcast going?’ and I said ‘I’m sorry, it’s not,'” Crain said. “So she kicked off the fundraising and made a few phone calls and we raised the rest.”
Disclaimer: Editor-in-Chief Isabella Gaglione ’25, News Editor Andreas Pelekis ’26 and Assistant Sports Editor Benjamin White ’27 are members of the classes that partnered with PBS39. They did not contribute to writing or reporting.
