Weekly RIAS talks focus on November U.S. elections
In the run-up to the U.S. elections on November 3, RIAS Berlin Commission has been and will continue holding a series of talks each week with experts and RIAS alumni from many of the key battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan. The talks will also include German TV anchors who will be covering the election. The goal of the talks is to provide an exchange of information about some of the finer points of the important states that decided the 2016 election and where polls show they could again be the pivotal states in the 2020 elections.
The next talk on Wednesday, October 14 will feature Charles Franklin, a political scientist at Marquette University who will talk about the situation in Wisconsin. Wisconsin was part of the “blue wall” that had voted for Democrats in every election from 1992 to 2012 before shifting in 2016 to the Republicans. The midwestern heartland state has been the focus of both parties and pollsters across the country ever since. Franklin, who is a regular guest on PBS TV in Wisconsin, helped establish Marquette as an important source for information concerning public opinion in Wisconsin.
The talk takes place at 6 pm (Berlin time) or 12 noon EST on Wednesday, October 14. Please write to info@darkseagreen-dog-940501.hostingersite.com for details about logging in.
One week later on October 21, Gesa Eberl from the RTL/NTV network in Cologne will be talking about the US election coverage in Germany and the impact of the elections on Germany and Europe. ┬áEberl was a US correspondent for RTL/NTV for three years from 2004 to 2007 and will be the co-anchor of RTL’s U.S. election coverage on November 3-4. She is also a RIAS alumni and a active member of the RIAS Cologne alumni chapter. She has given several talks to US journalists visiting Germany on RIAS programs. Her talk will be at 6 p.m. Berlin time (12 noon EST).
And on October 28, Vince Duffy of Michigan Radio will be talking about the situation in Michigan – another important Midwestern state that flipped from the Democrats’ to the Republicans’ electoral college column in 2016 and has been a focus of attention ever since. Duffy, a RIAS alumni and former chair of the RTDNA, has been the news director of Michigan Radio since 2007 and will be talking about the issues in Michigan. His talk will be at 6 p.m. Berlin time (12 noon EST).
Recent RIAS zoom talks have also featured RIAS alumni Tom Hawley of KSNV TV in Las Vegas for a talk about the situation in Nevada, as well as a talk one week earlier with LaCrai Mitchell of CBS News who spoke about her coverage of the elections in Florida and North Carolina. Other recent speakers talking about the election included Mark Murray, Senior Political Editor at NBC News in New York and Peter Rough of the Hudson Institute in Washington. Before that, RIAS alumni David Wagner, the news director of KLST TV in San Angelo, Texas, talked about the situation in Texas in light of rising number of coronavirus cases and was joined by RIAS alumni Kenya Woodward, a freelance journalist in Tampa Bay, Florida, as well as Buzz Conover, a reporter at Arizona Public Radio in Tucson, Arizona.
