Inside Look at CNN Headquarters
By Casey Harrison
I vi
sited the CNN Center in Atlanta February 8, 2018. The tour started at 10:00 a.m. and was conducted by Monte Plott, one of CNN’s digital news editors
We started the tour observing a live production on the Headline News (HLN) show Morning Expresswith Robin Meade. I was shocked to only see two people behind the scenes. Most of the cameras were controlled by robots.
We proceeded to the main news room where several writers and editors for domestic and global news were working. Here, we had a chance to see how individuals operate in gathering, writing and editing all kinds of news stories for CNN.com as well as the CNN broadcast networks. This was my favorite part because we got to listen and experience a team conduct an editorial meeting about different stories they intended to work on that day. After experiencing that environment, I could see myself pursuing a similar career writing for the sports industry.
We later observed the control room where all CNN reporting from New York to Washington to internationally is disseminated. Only four of us were allowed in at a time so didn’t risk distracting anyone. It was fascinating, but seemed quite stressful because they were working on so many tasks at once.
The CNN Español studio is where we met one of Monte’s prior interns, Rolando Ramirez. He was recently promoted to a full-time position at CNN Español. He explained to us how he is responsible for researching and fact checking. His guidance was to read as much as we can and understand how important it is to ask questions.
As we travelled through the CNN Center, I noticed various riveting photos of historic events CNN has covered. Seeing the CNN Center gave me an idea of how newsrooms operate. This experience helped me realize where I should take my career. I’m so appreciative of Plott for taking time out of his busy life to show us CNN headquarters.
He expressed how important the work is at the CNN Center and followed by saying “We are here 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every week of the year. Come in here at 2 a.m. on Christmas morning and you’ll see dozens of people working to cover news from wherever it’s happening in the world.”