April 2007   Go to Calendar Home Page –  View Previous Out and About Articles 
 

CNN Center
Inside the Newsroom

Looking for a way to explore Atlanta with relatives, we took our three children (all under age 8) – along with two nephews (ages 11 and 8) and their parents from out of town – to the CNN Center in downtown Atlanta.

The 55-minute studio tour explores inside CNN and moves quickly through several areas, including a control room theatre, exhibits, special effects and newsrooms.

In the control room area we were able to hear the director cueing the camera people, anchors and production crew as they put the news on the air.

The children’s favorite part of the tour was the special effects area where they learned how the anchors read the news and how backgrounds are made behind newscasters, like weather maps and video footage. My youngest nephew was selected to read from the TelePrompTer for his broadcast bit. With its bright green background, our tour guide showed us how Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak works in the movies, using the same process, which impressed the kids.

We walked through several balcony-like areas above the newsrooms and watched as a live segment took place. Looking down into the newsroom (we had to hold the toddler who couldn’t see clearly out the window), the kids discovered that a newsroom takes many people and a lot of computers to provide the news each day.

The tour moves quickly, keeping the kids from getting bored. Graphic and sometimes disturbing images line the walls of the tour, so parents need to be prepared for questions from curious youngsters.

The sneak peek into CNN’s news center helped the kids understand how the images that come across the TV screen are produced, and the older kids were truly impressed with the behind-the-scenes perspective.

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