JumboCast preps to provide election coverage

JumboCast will break from its traditional role streaming Tufts athletics to go live tonight from Hotung, covering the unfolding election and providing commentary about how the night's events affect the student community.
    "We're covering the election just as CNN or MSNBC would, but we're going to do it with a student perspective," said senior Matt Kaufman, JumboCast's general manager.
    The coverage will begin at 7:15 p.m. and will be live on the JumboCast Web site at www.jumbocast.com. The team will continue to broadcast until there is a winner.
    The lineup will include continuous reports of incoming election results, student and student group interviews and discussions with panelists such as University President Lawrence Bacow, according to junior Jason Tarricone, JumboCast's business manager.
    The telecast will be complete with a clickable map on a green screen that will allow states to change to blue or red as results come in and a crawler at the bottom of the page to give updates on congressional and presidential races.
    Kaufman said that about 20 students are working together through JumboCast to broadcast the event. In front of the cameras, there will be three anchors, four reporters and two people changing the map.
     There are also directors, researchers, a stage manager and camera operators, all working behind the scenes.
    JumboCast is also producing a documentary that will be aired tonight. The 30-minute film will cover the election from Obama's breakout appearance at the 2004 Democratic National Convention through the candidates' decisions to run and up to the present.
    It will cover momentous points from this cycle and feature footage from major speeches and appearances.
    While this venture into news is a departure from JumboCast's usual coverage, junior Teddy Minch, the group's programming director, said the election warrants all the attention it can get.
    "We chose to do this because we want to record important moments in time, and what happens in the here and now determines so much," he said.