On October 23, amid growing energy across campus for the November presidential election, the Academic Affairs Office hosted the fourth annual Deerfield Forum. This open dialogue also served as the marquee event of the weeks-long “24 for ’24” election education series. The forum centered around the question: “How does the press shape American elections?”
At the Forum, both Head of School Dr. John Austin and Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Anne Bruder stressed the need for speakers who exhibited diverse perspectives. Ultimately, the team invited White House Reporter Annie Linskey, National Political Correspondent Meridith McGraw ’08, and New York University Journalism Professor Jay Rosen to the forum.
As a correspondent for the political news website Politico, Ms. McGraw had followed President Donald Trump’s post-presidency and spoke as a guest in one of History and Social Department Chair Brian Hamilton’s classes. Dr. Bruder said, “We knew that she… could tailor her conversation to the interests of Deerfield students.” In contrast, Ms. Linskey covered Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, and Dr. Rosen is a prominent media critic.
Hoping to capture the buzz around this significant election, forum organizers began solidifying plans in the spring and summer. Academic Affairs chose the forum question with the politically polarized nation in mind. Dr. Bruder explained, “It would not be particularly educational or productive to have a shouting match on stage with a Trump representative and a Harris representative.”
In the end, the team settled on discussing issues around journalism. Dr. Bruder said, “By focusing on something like the press, we’re able to dig into the issues of polarization, of bias, of truth, of fact checking, of all these critically important questions without risking just a shouting match.”
Mr. Hamilton also emphasized the importance of understanding the role of journalism in politics. “Press literally mediates our experience of the election,” he said. “American civic life runs better with strong institutions that have a good amount of public.”
Moreover, Mr. Hamilton worried that United States citizens increasingly attacked and eroded trust in journalism. He hoped the Forum could foster that credibility by “giving Deerfield students a demystified sense of who reporters are, how they’re creating political news, what their goals are…and then start our criticisms, rather than slinging bows and arrows with ignorance.”
In addition to hosting this event in the fall, Academic Affairs implemented other logistical changes that diverged from forums in past years. For one, Mr. Hamilton, not an external moderator, facilitated the conversation between the three speakers. According to Dr. Bruder, Mr. Hamilton “knows what matters to Deerfield students,” she said, “and has choreographed the conversation and the questions around those concerns.”
Before the event, Mr. Hamilton collected student questions through a Google form and weaved select ones about social media, bias, and truth into the conversation. Previous forums had integrated questions with an open mic question and answer session, and forum organizers cut this Q&A in the interest of time.
“Deerfield students asked brilliant, complicated and provocative questions…I am just gobsmacked at their sophistication,” Mr. Hamilton said in a Scroll interview. “We might not get as many of those questions than if we solicited them in advance and worked them more naturally into the conversation.”
Dr. Bruder also recognized the benefit of the new question asking structure. She said, “In previous years, as soon as the Q&A started, we had really long lines of students up and down the rows, and it can be somewhat frustrating for students who are 25th in line and don’t get their question answered.”
While the Google form streamlined question asking and granted students more time to craft their inquiries, some observed decreased engagement during the actual forum. Zavi Salomon-Fernandez ’25, who submitted a question about the existence of unbiased journalism, said, “It’s less engaging to not have been able to interact with the speakers themselves.”
Students also attributed part of the diminished excitement to limited publicity leading up to the forum. Marco Feng ’26 said, “It was better last year, just in the sense that there was more engagement with the topic itself. But this year, there was not that much really about journalism at all, in terms of follow up before the forum and making students think about how to answer that question themselves.” Salomon-Fernandez reflected this sentiment, saying, “I wasn’t really excited for it [the forum] as much as I had before. The student skits and the student planning committee before probably made it more engaging.”
Due to the tight timeline be- fore the fall term event, no student group helped publicize and organize the forum. Dr. Bruder said, “Last year, we had a whole year to build programming and student engagement. This year, we solidified the contracts about a month ago, and so there just was far less time.” Mr. Hamilton acknowledged the difficulty in organizing student help in the planning process, saying, “The forum itself came together so late in the game that it didn’t make sense to try to pull students in.”
Nonetheless, outside activities, including a Scroll debrief session on journalism, still enabled students to further engage with the forum and election programming. Jade Zimmerman ’25, who submitted a question about the impact of social media algorithms on free press, conversed with Science Teacher Rich Calhoun after the constructive dialogue. She said, “We talked about how different platforms can basically cater what people see based on their own biases and what they want people to see,” she said, “You have to always be aware of the biases you’re consuming.”