Emerson Journalists Shine at First Iowa Caucus

DES MOINES, Iowa — Callie Krosin and Molly Dougherty weren’t about to let a golden opportunity slip through their hands.

It was a quiet Saturday afternoon in the Iowa Caucus Media Center, with many of the thousand journalists expected to work in the massive workspace still struggling to get to town.

A pair of massive snow storms — the latter of which was an all-out blizzard — had greatly impaired travel into Des Moines. 

Reporters who had made it to town were hunkered down either in the center or in their hotel rooms.

Even the candidates, who should have been racing to make their final pitches for support ahead of Tuesday’s Republican caucuses, thought it prudent to trim their frantic schedules.

With some unexpected time on their hands, Dougherty and Krosin, student journalists from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, began moving through the rows of tables, chairs and ethernet cables, quietly introducing themselves to the dozen or so other writers and photographers who were on hand.  

“Hi, I’m Molly,” Dougherty said with an outstretched hand.

“And I’m Callie,” said Krosin, standing a half-step behind her.

“We’re from WEBN in Boston,” they said almost in unison.

“We’re just going around introducing ourselves, and wondered if, maybe, you have any kind of advice about covering the Iowa caucus,” Dougherty continued.

Emerson, a private college, has long been considered one of the nation’s best schools for communications and journalism majors, and the journalism program spared little expense to enable some of its finest students to cover the caucus.

The media center itself is the brainchild of the Iowa Caucus Consortium, led by regional visitors’ bureau Catch Des Moines and the economic and community development organization the Greater Des Moines Partnership. It’s supported by both the Iowa Democratic Party and the Republican Party of Iowa.

Set up in the same row with CNN, Fox News, the Associated Press, Dougherty and Krosin would tirelessly ply their craft alongside established professionals and not a few household names.

Having come seeking advice, the pair, who’ve already won a student Emmy for their politics show on WEBN, soon found themselves being interviewed.

“WEBN is a student-run news organization and we work hard to make our school proud of us,” Dougherty said.

“Politics is only one of the subjects we cover,” said Krosin, WEBN’s managing editor.

“We also have a general news show, a sports show, an entertainment show, and we also do some additional programming, with a rotating cast, so that everyone gets to practice all aspects of the news, from the studio to the control room and producing,” she said.

Because of Emerson’s proximity to New Hampshire, both Dougherty and Krosin have been following presidential candidates all semester.

“We’ve seen former President Mike Pence, we’ve seen Sen. Tim Scott, both candidates that have since dropped out, as well as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Donald Trump,” Dougherty said.

“So we’ve been super lucky to have those opportunities to get out there and cover those candidates in preparation for this Iowa caucus trip,” she said.  

“And since we’ve been here, same thing,” she added. “We’ve been going to different candidate events. We saw former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and we went to a Ron DeSantis event. And we also went to a Vivek Ramaswamy event. 

“So we’ve just been going to different things, trying to get a feel for what candidates are saying to appeal to Iowa voters,” Dougherty said.

“It’s my responsibility to make sure we have a well-rounded slate of events to have nice, balanced coverage,” Krosin said, adding that the duo would have also covered a Trump event by then, but it was canceled due to the weather.

“Fortunately, we were able to secure an interview with Kari Lake, one of Trump’s media surrogates, and that was huge,” she said.

“As for the rest of the week, while it’s exciting and important to talk to the candidates and surrogates and so on, it is also really important to us to get a chance to interview and report on the voters.

“So right now, among other things, we’re looking for other events happening around town and venues like restaurants, where we can talk to people about how they feel about the caucus, whether they will actively participate, who they support and so on,” Krosin said.

“The Iowa caucus has been fascinating,” Dougherty said. “I mean, it’s just such an ingrained part of the community and culture here.

“The other thing about it, about this experience, is that we’ve found people not only to be willing to talk about it, but excited to do so,” she said.

“The caucus is an important tradition for them. It’s been going on for decades and, based on the work we’ve done, it seems like something that they really do want to keep alive.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue