By Neeti Sabnani (MPA ‘25)

As Election Day approaches, Technology, Media and Communications (TMaC) specialization at SIPA hosted its flagship event on the forthcoming US elections titled ‘US Elections through International Eyes.’ This event invited a panel of foreign correspondents from around the world to discuss how they cover the US Elections for their audiences back home. The panel was moderated by SIPA Professor Hagar Chemali and consisted of correspondents from Australia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Senegal, and the United Kingdom, all of whom had covered multiple US Elections before. 

TMaC Director, Anya Schriffin, has been hosting this event every four years since 2012 to mark the US Elections and discuss the changing trends and discussions around the presidential campaigns. In her opening remarks, she mentioned how this event was inspired by her father, who advised her to bring foreign correspondents to SIPA to share their thoughts on the US Elections.

Misha Ketchell from Australia noted how the 2024 US Presidential elections will have ramifications for many regions, especially given the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. José Diaz-Briseño from Mexico talked about the difficulty to report on original stories given the role of social media and how quickly new information now reached their audiences compared to before. 

As the conversation progressed, it was clear how differences in election coverage by the panelists depended heavily on the interests of their audiences back home. Yingqian Chen from Hong Kong Phoenix TV said that their station’s coverage aimed to split air-time equally between the two candidates with an objective to cover what is happening in the US during the elections as broadly as they can. Diaz-Briseño, however, said that their coverage focused more on how the events and election news would affect Mexico specifically.

The panelists discussed the general trends of political attitudes and affiliations they have been seeing as they travel across the country to report the news. Chris Mcgreal from The Guardian, United Kingdom and Diaz-Briseño spoke about how they were currently witnessing a rising support for Donald Trump amongst people of color and the younger demographic. Dame Babou from Senegal said, ‘Americans vote on how they feel and not their pockets except for when there is an economic crisis.’ 

Chemali asked the panel regarding how they explained the complicated US Election system to their audiences. Chen said that the Chinese audience understood a lot about the election process and was really interested in the swing states.

The Panel Discussion was followed by a Q&A session. When asked how a POC and female candidate may be perceived in their respective countries, Babou and Diaz-Briseño noted that race did not matter much in Senegal or Mexico whereas in the latter country, the first Jewish president was recently elected but was only commented upon by American media and was not relevant to Mexicans, emphasizing that identity politics matters more to Americans.

Election Day in the United States is November 5th, when the US citizens will vote for one of the two presidential candidates Kamala Harris (Democrat) and Donald Trump (Republican). First projections of the winner will likely be announced by election night with official results declared once the Electoral College votes have been cast. 

Neeti Sabnani (LSE- Columbia MPA '25) is a CEE and DAQA student. She holds a B.A. in Psychology, Sociology and Economics from Christ University, Bengaluru and has worked with Teach For India.