By Aedan Perry
University at Albany & Spotlight News
As someone who has been interested in political reporting for a long time, Tuesday night was an experience I’ll always remember.
This SUNY Local News Institute as a whole has been instrumental in getting me the real world experience that I need to refine the skills that teachers introduced to me. You really can’t replace real field experience with anything else, and election coverage was no different here.

      While I’d talked to some elected officials before for other stories, there was something unique about the atmosphere of election night; at times jovial and celebratory when the county Democratic Committee celebrated the wins it had on the local level; other times somber, especially as it became clear that the federal elections were not going the way that the party had hoped for.

      Through videos and interviews with the candidates, me, colleague JT Stone (pictured above) and my fellow classmates were able to hopefully provide a berth of coverage for local races and Albany Democratic Committee responses that people can only get from their local newspaper.
Local politics is one of the main areas of coverage for a local paper, and one of the hardest things for a community to lose. So just as this assignment was able to give me a college experience that I will remember for a long time, we were also able to help provide a local community with coverage of local races as they unfolded — which would have it appear that the SUNY ILN initiative is succeeding in its main objectives.

By JT Stone
University at Albany & Spotlight News
Covering the 2024 New York State Legislature election results for Spotlight News was an incredibly insightful experience for me as a young journalist.
By attending the Albany County Democrats’ election party, I had the opportunity to interview candidates for the state senate and assembly, as well as for district attorney and local judgeships, about their visions and reactions to their election results. In addition, I was tasked with recording candidate speeches after their races had been called and sending these clips to my editor in a timely manner, which helped provide quotes and color for our online coverage.
This experience increased my confidence speaking to lawmakers and candidates for elected office and helped me improve my time management skills when reporting on a fast-paced developing story in real-time.