Sinclair’s national news brand will offer special coverage of the 2024 Presidential Election and key races in different parts of the country on Tuesday, November 5, The Desk has learned.
The program — called “Beyond the Podium: Election 2024” — will air on approximately 90 broadcast television stations owned or operated by Sinclair, including those affiliated with the CW Network and some MyNetwork and Fox-affiliated outlets. It will also stream for free on all of Sinclair’s local TV websites and The National News Desk’s YouTube channel, a spokesperson confirmed.
In an exclusive interview with The Desk this week, Sinclair’s Vice President of News Scott Livingston said the special will harness the immense synergies between Sinclair’s local news-producing stations and its team of national journalists who helped build The National News Desk from the ground up.
Nearly all of Sinclair’s 66 local newsrooms will be contributing to The National News Desk’s Election Night special, Livingston said, and all Sinclair stations will have the opportunity to tap into The National News Desk’s reporting to supplement their own coverage.
There will be no shortage of live broadcasts covering key national and local races on Election Night — even Amazon is getting into the mix with their own special, helmed by former NBC News anchor Brian Williams — but Livingston said few news broadcasters are able to harness the power of local newsrooms in order to deliver greater context and depth on regional campaigns and causes the way Sinclair can.
“They don’t quite do it the way we do it,” Livingston said. “We’ve been doing this for several months, where we’ve leveraged our stations in swing states to showcase not only the campaign speeches, but also the issues that matter to local communities. I don’t think there’s anyone else that can do it quite like us.”
While other networks will parachute in journalists across the country, Livingston said Sinclair’s network of local newsrooms have been covering impactful causes and candidates on a regional level for some time — and they’re primed to lend that expertise to The National News Desk on Election Night. That becomes particularly important on Election Night if something goes amiss. If a protest breaks out, or a computer network goes down, or a race requires a recount, Livingston believes Sinclair’s network of local journalists will be in the best position to deliver that coverage to The National News Desk, because those journalists will already be there.
“People understand that our local reporters are going to give additional context that they can’t get anywhere else,” he said.
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The collaboration is a two-way road: Local newsrooms will be able to tap into The National News Desk’s team of journalists and reporting, to supplement their own local news broadcasts with national-level coverage. Livingston said The National News Desk is deploying no fewer than 16 journalists to key states across the country, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Montana, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. There will also be reporters embedded with the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, he affirmed.
“For us, it’s a great opportunity to get some sampling, it’s a great opportunity to tap into our local markets and also promote the fact that we have both local and national news coverage,” Livingston said. “There will be times when our local stations will reference The National News Desk, and then direct people to a second screen experience — they can watch their local station on TV, and The National News Desk on a phone or computer.”
The National News Desk’s Election Night special will be produced with a fluid and nimble schedule — the coverage will continue throughout the night and into the early morning hours, and could go beyond that if a major event requires it, Livingston noted.
“This is our opportunity to showcase multiple hours of coverage that goes more than a centimeter deep,” he said.
