COM Covers the Inauguration

Most of the nation will watch Donald Trump’s inauguration today from the comfort of their own homes. It will be more frenzied for journalists Sarah Toy and Rob Carter. While it’s possible that upwards of a million people may be at the ceremony to celebrate, or protest, the 45th president, Toy’s and Carter’s fingers will be flying across their keyboards, editing reams of news copy and multimedia from a team of tail-busting Terriers for posting ASAP.

Toy (COM’17) and Carter (COM’17) will be headquartered at the DuPont Circle office of BU’s Washington, D.C., Journalism Program as a half dozen fellow student journalists from Boston and three or four from the Washington program file stories, video, photos, and social media coverage for the Boston University News Service (BUNS), which since election night 2012 has immersed College of Communication students in covering real-world news.

“We’ll have student reporters at the swearing-in ceremony and stationed along the parade route. We’ll also have people covering protests around town, including the much-anticipated Women’s March,” says Toy. “There will also be students reporting from Boston, so we’ll have a local angle as well.” The Women’s March on Saturday is expected to draw hundreds of thousands advocating on behalf of women’s rights. Millions more will be marching in almost every state and around the world.

Trump’s swearing-in will cap a year and half of grueling campaign reporting by BUNS.

“We pride ourselves in providing opportunities for our students to do journalism,” says BUNS advisor Michelle Johnson, a COM associate professor of the practice of journalism, who has accompanied the students to Washington. “In covering the election these past 15 months, our students have had a chance to produce stories at campaign events and interview voters and delegates at the conventions last summer. And we were in New York City on election night. It’s been quite a ride.”

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