NBC Today Show producer studies political party splits in Blaine County
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Samantha Wender, a Producer with NBC News, spent part of last week in Blaine County “listening to folks, doing some filming and research.” Wender’s interest in Blaine County has to do with a story she plans about “how folks can coexist when their political views are so evenly split.” If and when a show is completed, it would be shown on NBC’s TODAY show.
Blaine County is one of only a few counties that met Wender’s criteria for a visit—“where the vote for President in 2016 was divided between the two candidates by only 50-100 votes.” There was another county, with similar voting results in Colorado, but Wender said toward the end of her visit to Blaine County, “I doubt I will go to Colorado. I’ve found information here for the story I want to do.” Later this month or in early April, Wender plans to return to Blaine County with a correspondent and production crew to make the materials for the program.
Heather DePriest was helping Wender get familiar with the county and connect with people for conversation. Describing how the producer initially made contact in Blaine County, DePriest said, “I got an email out of the blue from Samantha. I thought at first it was a scam, but I did some research on the internet and realized she was really who she said she was.”
While in the county Wender visited in various areas to talk to coffee clubs, individuals and dropped in on business owners. In Turner locals held an ‘open gym’ on a Friday morning and folks from toddlers to old-timers came by to visit. DePriest arranged an evening with a married couple who not only were split politically but even had opposing football loyalties, one a Griz-backer, the other a Cats supporter.
DePriest described the visit schedule as “freewheeling” and said Wender indicated she might be back more than once to complete material for the show. People who had visited with Wender, here in the county, seemed to enjoy the visits and described her as “polite and respectful” with her inquiries.
On her website, Wender described her work as a producer at NBC News: “I write and produce feature stories for TODAY and TODAY’s Weekend Edition. I also produce breaking news, pitching and booking the majority of my work. I’ve spearheaded and developed multi-platform series.” Prior to NBC she worked at ABC News Magazines (Primetime & 20/20). At ABC, among several projects, she worked on Diane Sawyer’s Hidden America Series—“a series about people out of the mainstream society and on the fringes of society.”
Wender has received a number of nominations for and won several professional awards. Plans for the story from Blaine County will include using a film crew, but many of her pieces are self-shot. This is how her career is described in another website about her: “Producer Samantha M. Wender has been telling award winning stories for more than 10 years having travelled to every state in the U.S. and to more than 40 countries around the world.” The website concludes, “Samantha lives in Brooklyn, NY and travels extensively.”
While the exact timeline of when a finished show will be ready, DePriest said Wender promised to share times when the story would air so locals could watch the finished story about our political culture.
