tonymcewing's Blog

    Hey...when you wake up at 2:10am every morning, five days a week, you need all the help you can get to do your job and believe me, I have a LOT of help. To most viewers, it's the people on the air with whom they most identify. We're the faces and voices of what they see and hear. We make them laugh, occasionally make them cry and sometimes make them downright angry. But for us on the air, we know that there is a lot more to getting that newscast, that story, that interview on the air than most people know. And by the time you see me at the desk delivering the news, a myriad of people have already paved the way. Before I even get up in the morning, news photographers have been out shooting video and interviews overnight or the night before that will air that morning on the news. If you think my schedule is bad, by the time I get up a little after 2am, my producer, Carol Fracassa has been hard at work for hours building the two hour show I will anchor. A team of writers has been at the station almost as long looking at wire copy, scouring the various feeds that come into the station with video from around the world, and rewriting stories that aired the night before on the 10 O'clock News. Oh yeah, those feeds with video from around the world? They don't just magically appear from nowhere. You have engineers who are responsible for making sure those feeds come in via satellite, captured on videotape and get to the writers who need them. 

     And let's not forget the hardworking folks at the assignment desk, perhaps one of the most thankless jobs in the business. They are the ones who have to keep their ears open for any unusual police or fire activity coming from a bank of scanners at the desk. They are the ones who have to check with law enforcement agencies throughout the LA Metropolitan area to determine whether anything of note occurred while you and I were asleep. And they're the folks who have to do the juggling, trying to get a limited number of photographers, reporters and ENG vehicles to wherever the news is happening or has recently happened. For those of you not familiar with some of the terminology, ENG refers to the trucks used to bring you a story "LIVE." Nope, it's not magic. There are people, very knowledgeable people how know how to operate those trucks so you see and hear what you need to see and hear while it's happening.
 

      Once the assignment desk has covered all the bases by sending out the crews to wherever they need to go, and the photographers have shot the video and the writers have written the stories I'll read and the videotape editors have put them together and the producer has built and organized the show you'll be watching for part of the morning, there is yet another group of people who must be engaged before you can see or hear anything. These are the people who occupy the "control booth" while the show is on the air. There is a director, who decides what camera I have to read to, determines when the video has to roll and is responsible for the overall look of the show technically. There is a technical director who takes direction from the director. When the director says take camera three, it's the TD who punches the button for camera three. There is an associate director and a chyron operator--the person who is responsible for all the writing you see on the screen, including the names of the people who are interviewed. There's a playback person who actually rolls the video when the director says so. That person is in a completely different room. And then there are the edit coordinators. Those are the people who make sure the dozens of videotapes aired during the newscast are coordinated so they are in the right order and in the playback area when they're supposed to be there.

      When I arrive at work, I go straight to make-up. Yep, that's right--make-up.  Trust me, if I didn't, you wouldn't listen to anything I was saying. You'd be too distracted by how horrible I would look. Don't let anyone tell you any differently, when you're in a studio under the glare of dozens of hot lights, you need make up. From make up I go to hair, which doesn't take long since, if you've ever seen me on TV, you know I don't have a lot of hair to work with.  It's at that point that I sit down at my computer to look at all the hard work done by people who got up far earlier than I did. Once I actually go over what's been written and rush to the studio, I put on a microphone that has already been checked by the good people in audio and which is constantly monitored throughout the show. I sit down in front of a camera that is operated and shaded just right, (so I don't look green or gray), by a cameraman in a room about a mile down the hall. The cameras are robotic so there isn't anyone standing behind them. They're moved around, focused and framed by the operator who uses a little joy stick in the video room. All of these people by the way are wearing headsets, earpieces or are within earshot of a squawk box so that everyone knows what everyone is doing at any given time. If there is miscommunication of any kind, our newscast could go down the tubes. Then there is the teleprompter operator who has to keep up with the pace at which I'm reading and catch up to me when I ad-lib and say something that isn't on the script. And the stage manager, who just happens to be one of my best friends, who is like a brother to me. He's my lifeline in the studio, telling me what camera to read to, what changes are being made in the show and how long the commercial breaks are. Then there are the production assistants who rip and coordinate the scripts

     The point is, I may be the face of the news for many of you, but that's pretty much it. Not to belittle what I do, (after all, we're called anchors because we are expected to hold the show together no matter what goes wrong), but I just want to pay homage to the many people behind the scenes who not only make me look good, but make it possible for you to be informed and entertained.