The message wasn’t meant to be part of the broadcast.

Projected in light onto a building behind a televised Pennsylvania senate debate, four words — tax the ultra rich — slipped into the frame of national politics, bypassing the usual filters. Cameras kept rolling. Viewers at home may have barely noticed. But for Tom Clement ’14, who was there covering the event, it stopped everything.

“I just thought it was fascinating,” Tom says.

That moment became the foundation for “Projecting Protest,” Tom’s documentary, which was recently nominated for Outstanding Short Documentary at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards — a recognition that underscores both the film’s originality and its exploration of free speech in a rapidly evolving media landscape.

Tom developed the project while working as a video journalist for Scripps News, often editing in the margins of demanding assignments.

“I was working a ton,” he says. “I’d be waking up at 5 a.m. to go to the White House … and then on my downtime, I was editing this documentary.”

The film examines projection activism as an emerging tool of dissent — one that allows individuals without wealth or institutional backing to insert their voices into high-profile moments.

“People without access to a lot of money or influence can still have a fairly big impact and start a conversation,” Tom says.

At the same time, the documentary confronts the complexity of free speech, showing how the same tactic is used across the political spectrum.

“It made people think really hard about how important free speech actually is and how complicated the issue actually is,” he says.

Tom, an Economics major at Guilford, credits his time at the College with shaping both his career and his perspective.

“I don’t think I really considered myself a journalist or a documentarian until I got to Guilford,” he says.

As a student, he created his first documentary on the hog industry in eastern North Carolina and began exploring other stories of individuals challenging systems of power – work grounded in the College’s Quaker values.

“It’s about activists shining light on injustice,” he says.

The Emmy nomination, he added, is the most significant recognition of his career.

“I felt pretty confident in the piece and the subject matter,” Tom says. “It was something new and original and well done. It’s an honor but I’m not that surprised. I think it’s really good.”

Winners will be announced May 28.