Student Reporting Labs, a journalism education program of WETA and the PBS NewsHour, will premiere We the Young People: Moments of Truth, a new half-hour special focused on the 2022 U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 8 p.m. eastern standard time — one week before election day. Effie Gross, a senior at West Ranch High School, will appear in the upcoming special.

Hosted by SRL teen reporters Tiffany Rodriguez of Philadelphia, PA. and Berto Suarez of Rockville, MD, We the Young People: Moments of Truth will showcase the issues that matter to young people, debut voting explainers, cover the campaign to expand the voting age to 16, and uncover misinformation.

“As Gen Z begins to be represented in the U.S. Congress for the first time, Student Reporting Labs is excited to cover the issues that matter to young people all over the country,” said SRL executive director Leah Clapman. “SRL continues to be at the frontlines, covering the changes young people are making in pockets all across the nation.”

An estimated 8 million young people aged 18-19 will be newly eligible to vote in the 2022 U.S. midterms. In total, 32 million members of Gen Z (ages 18-25) will represent a voting bloc large enough to potentially shape the outcomes of elections.

Viewers are encouraged to RSVP in advance of the premiere, which will take place on PBS NewsHour’s YouTube channel. WORLD Channel will broadcast an encore presentation on the eve of the midterm elections at 9pm ET on Monday, November 7.

The program was made possible with support from the Google News Initiative.

About PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs

Now in over 180 middle and high schools, Student Reporting Labs (SRL) is a national youth journalism program and public media initiative that trains teenagers across the country to produce stories that highlight the achievements, challenges and reality of today’s youth. SRL creates transformative educational experiences through video journalism that inspire students to find their voice and engage in their communities. Since 2009, SRL youth media producers have helped students place over 100 video news reports on PBS NewsHour’s nightly broadcast and more on local media outlets. Visit www.studentreportinglabs.org and StoryMaker to learn more.

About the Google News Initiative

The Google News Initiative is Google’s effort to partner with news publishers around the world to build a long-lasting, diverse and innovative news ecosystem. We do this by offering training, products and funding to journalists and newsrooms to help strengthen their work in the digital age. Since 2018, we have supported more than 7,000 news partners in over 120 countries and territories around the world, and that continues to grow. We’ve provided training for over 550,000 journalists on skills including digital verification, data visualization, and machine learning through in-person training. And we work to bring together industry leaders around the world, cultivating a diverse news community to spur innovation and tackle pressing issues like media literacy and misinformation.

About PBS NewsHour

PBS NewsHour is a production of NewsHour Productions LLC, a wholly-owned nonprofit subsidiary of WETA Washington, DC. Major corporate funding is provided by BNSF, Consumer Cellular, Fidelity, Johnson & Johnson, and Raymond James, with additional support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Kendeda Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Skoll Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Friends of the NewsHour and others. More information on PBS NewsHour is available at www.pbs.org/newshour. You can watch and find NewsHour on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. NewsHour Productions also produces PBS News Weekend and Washington Week.

About WETA

Founded in 1961, the Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (WETA) is the second largest producing-station of new content for public television in the United States, with productions and co-productions including works by filmmaker Ken Burns and Florentine Films, such as The U.S. and the Holocaust; and by scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., including the series Finding Your Roots and the forthcoming documentary Making Black America: Through the Grapevine; as well as PBS NewsHour, PBS Washington Week and The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize. More information on WETA and its programs and services is available at www.weta.org.

About WORLD Channel

WORLD Channel shares the best of public media in news, documentaries and programming. WORLD’s original series examine the issues and amplify the voices of those often ignored by mainstream media. The multicast 24/7 channel helps audiences understand conflicts, movements and cultures from around the globe. Its original work has won a Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, a National News and Documentary Emmy Award, two Webby Awards and many others honoring diversity of content and makers. WORLD is carried by 195 member stations in markets representing 75.1% of US TV households. Funding for WORLD Channel is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Wyncote Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and Artworks. WORLD is produced by GBH in partnership with WNET and is distributed by American Public Television (APT). Find out more at WORLDChannel.org.