On October 6th, PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, in partnership with the Poynter Institute's MediaWise, hosted “Face the Facts: Election 2020 Youth Town Hall.” The virtual event was produced to engage students and first-time voters on how to be prepared and better informed ahead of the November elections. The livestream included different segments featuring young people that have been clipped for educators to use separately or all together to initiate conversations about civics, elections and the role of young voters in a democratic society. 

In this “Pass the Ballot” segment, young media creators—featuring Myles Bess of KQED’s Above the Noise, Thanasi Dilos, the 17-year-old founder of Civics Unplugged, Ciara Riley Wilson, a Disney Channel actor, and Heaven Taylor-Wynn, a digital media journalist at MediaWise—share their civics journeys and why voting is important to them. 

Use the videos, discussion questions and activities in to learn how popular Gen Z creators use their platforms to talk about the importance of voting. Students will then have the option of creating their own media. 

Hosted by Amna Nawaz, senior national correspondent and primary substitute anchor for the PBS NewsHour. The event included special guests; Hari Sreenivasan, NewsHour senior correspondent and anchor for NewsHour Weekend, Savannah Sellers, NBC News and MSNBC correspondent and co-host of Stay Tuned, NBC’s twice-daily news show on Snapchat and Instagram, and Peter Hamby, host of Snapchat’s Good Luck, America.