On October 6th, 2020, The PBS NewsHour’s, Student Reporting Labs, in partnership with Media Wise, hosted Face the Facts: Election 2020 Youth Town Hall, a one-hour, virtual youth town hall event that streamed live on the News Hour digital platforms.  

In preparation for the event, all of Youth Beat’s after school film students created Rapid Response videos that reflected their current views on this historical election year. We submitted ten of those responses to PBS and they selected 6 out of the 10 to include in the live Town Hall event! 

Youth Beat Students who represented Oakland on the national stage and contributed their voices to the youth-led conversation were AJ from Dewey Academy, Kaya & Samantha from Skyline High School, and Sara from Nea Community Learning Center. And ALL of our film students attended the Town Hall during our regular class time. 

The livestream event kicked off by acknowledging that Gen Z makes up 10% of all eligible voters, and Gen Z along with Gen X will become the largest electoral voting group by 2024. It was jam packed with conversations and commentaries on how the actions of Gen Z matter and how this generation is engaging in this historic election. I also included educational elements on how to spot election misinformation.  

Afterwards our students engaged in a survey and small group discussions. Here are some of their takeaways.  

"It was really cool to see the voices of so many people my age spotlighted."

"I learned how to determine if something is fake or not."

"Inspiring + educational"

When asked what gives them hope, one student replied, “My generation because we are a lot more educated at a young age and have a lot more resources to educate ourselves than the past generations.” 

We couldn’t agree more!  What an amazing opportunity to enhance our Media Literacy and Critical Thinking skills while being civically engaged. Make sure to check out the KQED Newsroom follow up interview with Samatha Ivey that aired live twice over the weekend of Oct.15th!