U.S. election coverage timeline

Iowa Caucus

VOA National correspondent Jim Malone explains the significance of the Iowa Caucus, the first contest in which voters chose their candidates for the 2016 presidential election.

Iowa Caucus

Alhurra and Radio Sawa also provided extensive coverage on the role the Iowa Caucus plays in American democracy and what issues most interested the voters when they went to caucus.

RFE/RL crafted web articles aimed at its audiences in the Balkans, Russia, Ukraine and Iran.

Republican National Convention

Alhurra’s simultaneous Arabic translation of the Trump’s speech received more than 58,000 views and 3,400 Facebook reactions, comments and shares. Alhurra and Radio Sawa had more than 15 correspondents at the Democratic and the Republican National Conventions each day to report and provide context.

Republican National Convention

Presidential debates

Election Day

From the opening of the polls, to Donald Trump’s acceptance speech, the networks of the BBG provided unparalleled coverage of the historic 58th U.S. presidential election.

Election Day

The Current Time digital network offered its audience eight hours of live Russian-language coverage on election night.

Several of VOA’s African services connected diaspora communities online during for election night parties. VOA Swahili, for example, went live on Facebook as members of the diaspora from East Africa watched the results come in from a Kenyan restaurant in Beltsville, Maryland.

Election Day

Middle East Broadcasting Network’s Alhurra Television stationed its correspondents throughout the Middle East and North Africa, featuring reactions from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran and elsewhere. The network’s flagship discussion program Free Hour was expanded an additional hour to feature discussion from Republican and Democratic analysts and foreign policy experts from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran.

Election Day

VOA Persian’s Arash Sigarchi reports the incoming election results on-air on election night.

RFE/RL’s Radio Farda provided its radio and Internet audiences with live updates of the results, as well as a series of features, such as the history of Iranian-American relations with Democratic and Republican administrations in the U.S. Radio Azadi, broadcasting in both Dari and Pashto to Afghanistan, liveblogged on election night and conducted interviews with numerous prominent Afghan politicians and residents about expectations for the vote. Azadi also aired a discussion that included Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani’s press advisor, Nabi Misdaq.

The RFE/RL newsroom also produced a video explainer, both in English and Russian, on the U.S. Electoral College, as well as a glossary of key terms and phrases.

Election Day

TV and Radio Martí aired more than 20 hours of live continuous coverage and 24-hour live blogging through social media. As part of their coverage, Radio and TV Martí interviewed Cuban immigrants who were voting for the first time, as well as, other Cuban voters across the country. The Martís also interviewed Cubans in the island for their thoughts on the election.

Election Day

RFA’s Mandarin service covered the election with dispatches from Hong Kong. Even though the Chinese authorities barred live coverage of the vote-counting process in the U.S., the election attracted widespread attention in China.

VOA Korean shared a story with RFAs’ Korean service on a North Korean refugee, resettled in Virginia, as he voted for the first time.