Butler Students Participate in 2024 Election Coverage

Butler Community College Mass Communication students were selected to produce audio programming for Student Network Live’s (SNL) coverage of Election 2024. Student-run KBTL-FM (88.1 The Grizz) was the only participating college or university station from Kansas.

Sponsored by The College Radio Foundation, NBCU Academy, iHeart Radio and the PBS News Hour Student Reporting Labs, SNL is an audio and video ad-hoc network involving students from over 120 colleges and universities worldwide. The group produced over 48 hours of live and prerecorded content for the election through its Student News Live Correspondents.  

Butler students also produced a special election edition of Open Door Policy, an open topic talk show on KBTL. “Student correspondents interviewed local voters, including first-time voters, long-time voters, small business owners, retirees and various ethnic and gender groups,” said Dr. Keith West, faculty advisor for Mass Communications at Butler and general manager of KBTL.

West noted this isn’t the first time Butler students have participated in a nationwide project. "KBTL was a founding participant in World College Radio Day, the annual global event started in 2010 that sees over 500 college radio stations broadcast cooperative programming for 24 hours straight, and Vinylthon, an annual event started in 2015 which sees a similar number of stations play records exclusively for 48 consecutive hours.

Participating students are listed below, listed alphabetically by hometown:

Andale

Brentyn Caselman

Andover

Andrew Wiele

Derby

Rhen Goin

El Dorado

Alexander Easley

Harper

Lanni Holdt

Mulvane

Tess Hargrove

Oskaloosa

Treyton Bassett

Wichita

Malaki Coleman