Experience News Making at CNN Center, Atlanta

Do you want to get behind the scenes of Cable News Network (CNN)? Yes! It’s possible. You can take a journey into the heart of CNN World Headquarters, located in downtown Atlanta, for a glimpse of news and broadcasting in action! The only thing you have to do is take 50 minutes guided tour and keep your eyes wide open; there’s no telling who you might see while walking the halls. I went to CNN Studio last month during Memorial Day weekend and had an amazing time exploring the once-in-a-lifetime view of the global headquarters of world’s largest newsgathering organization.

CNN Studio offers Regular and VIP tours. The VIP tour is more expensive than the Regular tour and you will see a little more on the VIP tour, but if you are watching your budget, you’ll do just fine on the regular tour. The tour starts in an exhibit area where you’ll find timelines covering the history of CNN and Turner Broadcasting, interactive kiosks where you can surf the CNN websites or access clips from the top 100 stories that CNN has covered, memorabilia from some of those events, and a journalism ethics display. After clearing security, your tour begins with a long ride up the world’s largest freestanding escalator which is 196-feet long and eight stories high. Don’t look down if you’re acrophobic!

The first stops on both the tour takes you into a theater where you hear the director of whatever show is live at the moment giving instructions inside the control room. Your tour guide explains how the control room operates. You’ll be looking at a wall of on-screen images waiting to appear on TV screens everywhere.

During the next stop, you’ll learn how a teleprompter works and how those weather guys and gals do it. One person from your group may get to do a little stand-in work to demonstrate various features of weather maps and teleprompters.  As you learn how the weather maps works, you could, Yikes, disappear, sort of like Harry Potter when he wore his invisibility cloak. You’ll also get a better understanding of how newsman John King moves things around on the touch-screen on election night. In addition to watching the person who may be on the air at the time, you’ll also learn about microphones and types of cameras.

If you are on the VIP tour, you get to walk inside Studio 7 and watch the action that occurs just before anchors or guests appear on TV. Another benefit for VIP tour-goers is getting inside the newsroom. Not to worry, though. If you are on the regular tour you’ll also see the newsroom, but from a glass-enclosed area up above it. This part of the tour gives you an idea of how many people it takes to pull off a newscast.

You’ll exit through the CNN gift shop where there’s all variety of tchotchkes to take home. If you’re a huge fan of CNN, you can buy something from the gift shop. you can even have a videotape made of yourself reading the day’s top stories from behind a CNN anchor desk.

There is a huge food court on the ground floor where you can grab a bite and delight your taste buds after finishing your tour.

Overall, the CNN studio tour was a neat glimpse into how a news show is produced and I learned a few tv tricks that are used on the broadcasts daily. I’d say if you watch CNN, the tour is definitely worth to go!

Do share your experiences if you’ve visited CNN Studio in the comments below?

Happy Traveling!
Ana