AUBURN, AL (EETV) - During the historic 2016 election, Eagle Eye TV made a commitment to Auburn to be the leader in election coverage.
"We had never really covered elections before," says Brandon Etheredge, Executive Producer for the station's election night broadcast, "Eye on the White House."
The team of student journalists spent nearly seven hours live on air watching election returns and calling the election. The station's election coverage was set up to be network-style with two broadcasting locations, an elections return team, and a full production staff.
"We wanted this to be something you would see on CNN or ABC," says Etheredge. "But then something crazy happened."
What could be so crazy? The team of student journalists started beating the major networks to announcing who won each state.
"I started investigating vote totals in particular counties," says Ryan Lavoie, EETV's own John King. "We tried to determine what percent of the vote was outstanding of that vote, which way would it swing?"
And on every projection Eagle Eye was correct.
"Monumental," that's how Lavoie describes the moment he realized that Eagle Eye was going to be the first one to call the election.
"Time stood still," said Etheredge. "I looked at the team and said, 'are you sure?' and after one more look at the numbers the team looked back and said, 'we know we are right' so we ran to the studio."
Minutes after the decision was made at 12:26 Central time. Election analyst, Evan Blank, along with Ryan Lavoie cut into a commercial break to announce that America had elected its new leader, nearly an hour before any other news outlet.
