We put 100 people often seen as one voting bloc in a room. The conversation got explosive.
A primetime town hall series for PBS from OZY Media, exploring the range of opinions within groups often seen as voting as a bloc. Each episode brought together 100 people who share key characteristics, ahead of the 2018 midterms.
Watch the trailers on PBS →Who was watching
Public-TV viewers heading into the 2018 midterms, at a moment of growing polarization. The series set out to challenge the stereotypes and assumptions that flatten whole demographics, and to create a forum for substantive dialogue across America’s most pressing issues.
What we made for them
Four town halls in four cities, one episode a week: Black men in Baltimore, white women in Nashville, Latinx families in New York, and Asian American millennials in San Francisco. A host and a panel of guests, including Jemele Hill, Rosie Perez, and Eddie Huang, set up the topics. Then the room took over. The pilot run was funded by the Charles Koch Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
What they did
They debated, in their own words. In Baltimore, the conversation covered the justice system, the president, NFL protests, and fatherhood. Nashville took on religion, guns, #MeToo, and feminism. New York took on immigration, religion, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. San Francisco took on affirmative action and whitewashing. The episodes aired on PBS stations and ran on YouTube, Facebook, and OZY.com, and OZY reported more than 10 million viewers across the first four.
My part
A town hall only works if the room is right. As creative and crowd producer on the pilot run, I worked on the shape of each episode and built the crowds: 100 people per city who shared key characteristics and brought a real range of views. Four cities, four rooms, four episodes on air in four weeks.
The four rooms
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