As the 2020 U.S. Presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic collide, voters face new challenges, including how to cast their vote and where to find reliable information.
This semester, UConn journalism students launched Crash Course: Election 2020, a digital newsletter created to provide non-partisan information for voters about their choices come Election Day.
They aim to cut through the noise to help young and first-time voters learn what’s at stake on their ballot, and why it matters.
“We put an emphasis on neutral and truthful perspectives, so there’s not a political outcome we’re going for,” says Allison O’Donnell ’20 (CLAS), a journalism major with a political science minor who is one of the writers. “We want people to make well-informed decisions and give them the knowledge they need to make an informed vote.”
The digital newsletter focuses on a new topic each week, mixing national and local headlines, including student debt, the Supreme Court, environmental issues, political debates, and more. The newsletter is part of Associate Professor of Journalism Marie Shanahan’s publication practice course on election coverage, and includes O’Donnell, Ashley Anglisano ’20 (CLAS), Fiona Brady ’21 (CLAS), Ben Crnic ’21 (CLAS), and Mike Mavredakis ’22 (CLAS) as writers, with Shanahan as the editor.