The Election 2008 Visiting Journalists Program
President-elect Barack Obama at a rally in Manassas
The program, which ran from Oct. 22 to Nov. 6, was designed to let the journalists see American democracy at work. To achieve that goal, it placed them at the center of the electoral storm.
The visiting journalists fanned out to battleground states around the country and worked in newsrooms as far north as New Hampshire, as far south as Florida and as far West as Colorado, reporting alongside American reporters and watching both the political process and the role of the U.S. media.
During the two-week program, which was sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Press Center, the journalists attended campaign rallies of the major candidates and talked to political experts and ordinary voters. They also received a series of briefings in Washington, D.C., from election scholars and political leaders, including Sen. Richard Lugar on Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.





