In a contentious election year, journalists around the country hit the road to find Americans from all walks of life who wanted to tell stories about their concerns, issues and ideals.

Few outlets reached a wider audience with those stories than This American Life, the weekly radio show and podcast broadcast on more than 500 stations across the country to more than 2.2 million listeners. At the center of the effort: producer Zoe Chace. 

On Tuesday, Chace will share lessons learned from a year on the road in an election year at Longwood University in a talk presented by the Office of Alumni and Career Services, and the departments of Sociology and Communication Studies.

The talk will be held Tuesday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. in Blackwell Ballroom. Members of the community are invited to join faculty, staff and students for the presentation.

Our campus was at the center of the election, and this talk will be a good time to reflect on that role and our part in the national conversation.

Paige Rollins ’15, assistant director of live events in the Office of Alumni and Career Services

“We’re excited to have Zoe at Longwood to cap debate activities and speak to the lessons she learned on the road during this election cycle,” said Paige Rollins ’15, assistant director of live events in the Office of Alumni and Career Services. “Our campus was at the center of the election, and this talk will be a good time to reflect on that role and our part in the national conversation.”

Chace will discuss interactions she had with college students who led rallies and participated in a national election for the first time, and will touch on the concept of fake news and storytelling in radio. She is the final speaker in the Longwood’s yearlong speaker series around the 2016 Vice Presidential Debate.

Chace began her career as a radio reporter for the public radio program Planet Money, where her reporting took her around the country. Among other stories, she spent much of a year reporting on why community colleges have low completion rates.

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