TMU Votes: Inside TMU’s live provincial election coverage

As the sun set on Feb. 27, 2025, the Rogers Communications Centre (RCC) was only starting to come alive. More than 50 staff, students and faculty bustled between the first and second floors, Studio A and Studio D, hauling equipment, rehearsing lines and preparing for a monumental live event.

Ontario was at the polls, voting in a snap-election to pick their new local MPPs and premier and students, faculty and staff of the Journalism and RTA School of Media programs joined forces to pull together a live broadcast, TMU Votes, to cover the election.

The project, one of the largest collaborations between the departments, gave students the chance to apply their classroom-learned skills in the real world. It was the first time a show aired simultaneously from Studio A, the Arthur Smith Virtual Production Studio, Studio D and the On The Record (OTR) newsroom, while also having reporters in the field across the GTA. 

To start the evening, production members were invited to a pre-show pizza party in The Venn. They were T-minus two hours to air and the last rehearsal was yet to begin.

THE LEAD-UP

Preparation for the TMU Votes broadcast began as hastily as Premier Doug Ford’s announcement of a provincial election.

By the first week of February, an email had gone out to all journalism students who took JRN 314 or JRN 851 in the Fall semester or were currently enrolled in the Winter semester. The email invited them to play a role in TMU’s live election broadcast.

“I have done a couple of live election broadcasts here before,” said Lindsay Hanna, supervising director of TMU Votes. “But never one where we saw this much uptake and excitement from the students.”

Adriana Fallico, a fourth-year journalism student, said she knew she wanted to be part of the momentous project and try her hand at a new skill.

“I went out to try out for the spot to be on camera,” Fallico said. “I’ve done a lot of written work so far in the last four years and not a lot of broadcast.” She was chosen as a co-anchor for TMU Votes.

In the weeks before the broadcast, students, staff and faculty were only able to get in minimal rehearsal as a group, between their various other commitments. The night before, they ran a rehearsal with whoever was available to test the various parts of the broadcast. It was only two hours before they went live that they did their first full mock-run of the broadcast with the full crew.

In Studio D, the journalism program’s studio, around eight people gathered in the control room, with a few more on the set. In hushed whispers, they communicated directions to the anchors, made production calls amongst each other and spoke to the other newsrooms. 

Sat in the corner, hooked up to a headset, her phone and laptop in-hand, watching the screens of the control room, professor Nicole Blanchett, executive producer of TMU Votes, coordinated the show.

In Studio A’s control room, more people huddled in a slightly larger space than Studio D. RTA student engineers communicated amongst themselves, trying to solve a camera glitch in the studio one floor below them. The production was an all-hands-on-deck project: while the RTA students handled the technical elements, J-School students kept the content flowing.

During the rehearsal, when it wasn’t the cameras glitching, it was issues with the clarity of the audio. When it wasn’t the audio, it was the teleprompter going out. At one point in the rehearsal, fourth-year journalism student Vanessa Tiberio, the results host for the event, improvised an entire segment to keep the show running smoothly.

“It was actually the best thing that probably could have happened,” Tiberio said of the glitch. “I was like, ‘okay, if this happens in the real thing, I’m getting the practice in now.’”

In the OTR newsroom, the pre-show atmosphere resembled calm chaos, as reporters worked on packages while the newsroom camera was being adjusted for air. “This is stressful,” one of the student producers said exasperatedly. The room laughed in acknowledgement. Despite the high-stress environment, the students gave each other compliments and encouraging high-fives.

Running through the broadcast, the team in the newsroom had an idea of what was working and corrected mistakes and glitches as they came up. The crew now only had a few short minutes of consolidation before it was time to go live.

THE BROADCAST

A minute before they went to air, Studio D was in a light mood. With 40-seconds to air, the control room broke out in applause. Then Hanna did the 10-second countdown, her headset transmitting the audio to the other RCC studios and TMU Votes was live.

Immediately, crews around the RCC and student reporters across the city fell into a rhythm. Though they periodically dealt with challenges: fuzzy audio, incorrectly timed split-screens and ad-libs gone wrong, the TMU Votes team triumphantly pushed through.

One thing they never abandoned was maintaining a positive work environment. As the anchors finished their segments, Hanna would call out: “Great job on the desk.” Everyone in the newsroom gave constant reassurances; at one point, between takes, Fallico was even dancing at the news desk. There was no overriding, disrespect or anger in the heat of challenging moments.

“That night was representative of the newsroom I want to work in,” said Angela Misri, supervising producer and assistant professor of journalism. “I saw some really good work done and that's all I want as a journalist. I want to create the newsroom of the future and I hope this was a good representation for our students.”

In the field, student reporters were covering election HQs with infamous TV broadcasters across the province. At Marit Stiles’ HQ, in a ring full of expensive cameras and audio equipment, a team of three OTR journalists did their best to compete with their phone on a tripod and delivered the news just as effectively as the professionals that surrounded them.

Over at Doug Ford’s HQ, student reporters had to deal with being kicked out of the public spaces. Misri said she was proud of the way her students had dealt with the situation and made the pivot to present from outside of the HQ.

“It was such a seminal moment as a journalist, because we’ve all experienced that and they handled that so beautifully,” she said.

The TMU Votes election broadcast was expected to run for another hour, when CP made the call that Doug Ford won his third term as premier of Ontario. Winston Sih, supervising producer, made the call to Tiberio, the results host, over her in-ear mic. She felt it was a “pretty big moment” to be the one presenting the result to Ontarians.

PART 3: THE AFTERMATH

As soon as the elections broadcast successfully came to a close, applause and cheering erupted in the various studios. Quickly, the crew of over 50 people (except the on-site reporters) made their way to the Arthur Smith Virtual Production Studio for a group photo.

There were celebrations all around; the students had achieved something monumental with a great group of professionals across departments to guide them through it.

“My favourite thing is seeing students succeed,” Blanchett said. “I absolutely cannot tell you how much joy I get out of [seeing] a student who I might have had some part in their growth [since] first year doing something like this.”

Misri said Blanchett was dedicated “24/7 for three weeks” to see the production to success.

Tiberio said TMU Votes had shaped foundational lessons she would take forward in her broadcasting career.

“It’s not until you're thrown into a live situation that you truly need to know how to pivot,” she said. “So that was the biggest thing I learned: you need to be able to think on your toes.”

Misri said her OTR newsroom has always covered elections, on a much smaller scale. But after having collaborated with RTA’s team of wonderful engineers and students in the broadcast class, it would be hard if they had to move backwards.

“No going backwards,” Blanchett said in response. “Only forwards.”

The TMU Votes provincial elections broadcast is available to watch here (external link) 

With files from Lama Alshami, Julia Lawrence and Atiya Malik.