A team of Loyola Marymount University journalism students spent their summer researching, reporting, and producing a documentary to uncover a salient detail of the 2024 election: the apparent rightward lean of Gen Z voters.
“We are trying to understand how Gen Z shifted to the right in politics,” said Grace McNeill, a senior political science major with a journalism minor, and executive producer for the project. “We are exploring the reasons this happened and want to see if the is shift permanent.”
Through the summer, students from the Los Angeles Loyolan, ROAR Studios, and Project Citizen teamed up to work on the collaborative documentary “Identity Crisis.” The student-journalists – McNeill, Ava Zuerlein, Reece Cartee, Jules Kamoie, Amani Rivers, and Rylee Davis – conducted interviews with people across the political and generational spectrum.
“The students went into this project with open minds – as all journalists should,” said Project Citizen advisor Carol Costello, an award-winning CNN journalist and lecturer in LMU’s Journalism Department. “They wanted their viewers to understand why Gen Z voted the way it did without pointing fingers to gain clicks or eyeballs – or to suit their audience. That’s actually brave today. It shouldn’t be. But it is.”
The 20-minute documentary will premiere on campus in early November to coincide with the year anniversary of the 2024 presidential election, then it will be available on the Loyolan channels on YouTube.
The project team conducted dozens of interviews and traveled to Washington, D.C., to interview people across the political spectrum – including CNN news anchor Dana Bash at the CNN offices in D.C.; Gen Z politician Joe Vogel, who serves in the Maryland House of Delegates; Morgonn McMichael of Turning Point; and Cheyenne Hunt of Gen Z for a Change.
“These students went out of their comfort zones,” said Tom Nelson, director of Student Media at LMU and an adviser on the documentary. “They are deep diving into Gen Z and politics.” The team also had the opportunity to interview Karl Rove, the deputy chief of staff for policy in the George W. Bush administration.
Junior journalism major Zuerlein said, “Our team spent the summer reaching out to sources, scheduling interviews, and finding time between all of our other responsibilities to make those conversations happen. That persistence gave me the chance to interview some of the most interesting people I’ve ever spoken with and helped me build a well-rounded perspective on our topic.”
McNeill handled most of the logistical details for the project, with guidance and assistance from Nelson, Costello and student media adviser Kevin O’Keeffe. “Our team spent the summer reaching out to sources, scheduling interviews, and finding time between all our other responsibilities to make those conversations happen,” said Zuerlein.
The documentary project is a continuation of Project Citizen’s work, spearheaded by Costello and Nelson. The project began in 2019 with its focus on dialogue, though it sometimes felt like confrontation. Costello started the project with “Study America,” bringing students from disparate backgrounds together in the same classroom. She turned to her alma mater Kent State University in Ohio and teamed with Amy Reynolds, dean of the College of Communication and Information at Kent State, to offer an inter-regional exchange, where a group of LMU students spent time in Ohio learning what life was like in the Midwest and what issues most concerned them. Then, a group of Kent State students spent time on the Westchester campus. The exchange exposed some telling stereotypes, but also yielded insights into the breadth of Gen Z.
The next year, Costello hosted a series of podcasts titled “I Hate Your Generation,” which engaged people from different generations to talk about issues and what each generation thought of the others.
The first two years of Project Citizen were fully funded by private donations secured by Costello in partnership with LMU University Advancement; the third year added support from The Loyolan, which supplied student journalists and split their employment costs.
For Project Citizen’s third year, Costello recruited additional advisers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and Morgan State University journalism Professor E.R. Shipp; LSU student media director Jeff Gauger; and KSU student media director Kevin Dilley. The goal was to design a project that would challenge students to telling interesting, unbiased stories while opening their minds and finding solutions to our country’s divide.
For Climate 360, the third version of Project Citizen, LMU students partnered with students from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and Morgan State University, an HBCU in Maryland, to produce a deeply researched, multifaceted documentary, “Planet-Based,” that explored ways to unite students in and beyond the LMU community to tackle important global issues.
The next iteration took direct aim at electoral politics. E2024, proceeding on the principle that the best way to be heard is to engage in dialogue. The results from that extensive, involved project stand in stark contrast to superficial, quick-hit social media. During the summer of 2023, a group of E2024 journalists toured Washington, D.C., conducting interviews and gathering background footage. “The group met with former congressman and now lobbyist Henry Waxman, and Rep. Ted Lieu, who represents the LMU district,” said Nelson. “Seeking the story is the primary motivation,” said Costello about E2024, “and being interested in politics where other points of view are heard.” E2024 was also a project of LMU’s Media Arts & A Just Society.
By the end of August 2024, E2024 drew 100,000 video views across YouTube and Instagram. LMU student journalists became sought after for their views on Gen Z politics – appearing in publications across the country. The project garnered group and individual awards for their work.
For the 2025 documentary project, Kamoie said, “Our goal was to explore whether Gen Z’s shift to the right in 2024 was a 2024 anomaly or the political future of Gen Z. I was surprised to find that our sources from all across the political spectrum agreed that social media, influencers and non-traditional news sources are largely responsible for shaping political identity, especially among young voters. Hearing this common view again and again reminded me that as journalists, we can’t rely on polls and data to understand what’s happening.”
Zuerlein said, “What surprised me most was how often people brought up the economy as Gen Z’s top issue. Gen Z is usually framed as this super progressive generation that mainly cares about social issues, but it’s clear the rising cost of living is a big concern for them, too. I don’t think that original narrative is totally wrong, but there’s a lot more nuance to how Gen Z’s political beliefs are being shaped — and that’s what we wanted to explore with this project.”
McNeill emphasized that developing their journalism skills was a prime benefit to the project. “We learned how to listen and think ahead for the next question and how to talk to a source and prepare for an interview,” she said. Zuerlein added, “I’m so grateful to have gotten this opportunity and already know that this project is going to stick with me for a long time.”