Behind The Scenes At MSNBC
By Greg L | 13 July 2007 | Uncategorized | 6 Comments
Today I had a very interesting opportunity to do two live interviews in MSNBC about the efforts of Help Save Manassas to get Supervisor Stirrup’s resolution on illegal aliens passed by the Board of County Supervisors, and about what that resolution will mean for Prince William County. In the past several months I’ve had a lot of opportunities to deal with the media, but live national television is an entirely different experience. Behind the scenes looks a whole lot different than what you see on television.
Yesterday I got called by MSNBC and asked to do two live shots. They even offered to send someone to drive me from Manassas to their studio in DC, which made it even easier to agree. Around noon a Lincoln Town Car pulled up and I had a pleasant ride into town. So far, this was looking pretty classy. They drove me to the WRC-TV studio, and a very pleasant young man brought me back to the “green room” on the first floor through hallways that looked like we were entering the mechanical spaces of the building. The place is a dump. Perhaps what WRC-TV uses to produce their broadcasts is nice, but the space used to support the national MSNBC effort is downright embarrassing.
I went into makeup and waited in the spartan “green room” and in a few minutes met John Stirrup as he was coming out of his interview. He had done a great job, which I watched on the monitors, and after congratulating him I was led to a door which had a paper sign with “VIP Studio” printed on it taped next to the door at about 1:30. Maybe this was going to be the hum of some big national media center, and I’d get a chance to see a real studio in action. Not a chance.
The “VIP studio” was a large closet in what seems to have previously been part of a room used to house mainframe computers. There was black foam on the walls to muffle noise, an old table with some old office phones on it, and a rickety chair with a very nice backdrop on the wall. A couple of old television monitors were in front of the table, and a camera was on a tripod in the corner. The camera, tripod, and backdrop were about the only things in that room that seemed to not be at least ten years old. I got miked up and got the earbud adjusted, and everyone left.
I soon figured out that they do a time delay for live broadcasts (not too surprising), and waited for someone to talk to me in the earbud. In a couple of minutes the live feed started coming in through the earbud and it was off to the races. I suppose the interview went pretty well, but it was somewhat disconcerting to be in an empty room talking to a television camera and hearing the reporter in an earbud. After the first interview was complete, my handlers came back in and unhooked me, and I waited about a half hour in the “green room” for the next segment. Makeup adjustment, back into the closet, and wait for the earbud to start one more time.
Then I had about two hours to kill until the next interview. I watched the show a bit and made some calls, only to have my handlers come in at 4:30 and tell me that the Miss America story had preempted my 4:30 piece. I guess Miss New Jersey retaining her crown was more significant to our nation than our localities trying to manage the illegal alien problem that the federal government has left to them. Oh, well. I checked to see if WRC-TV wanted to do anything with me since I was already there and ready to go, but since they were already into their 4PM news broadcast there wasn’t enough time to set anything up. So it was back to the Town Car for the ride home.
The folks I dealt with were fantastic. I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone that media people can be very polite and helpful when they want you to help them out. Seeing what things actually look like behind the scenes was fascinating, and if that’s what it looked like to a guest, I can only imagine how rudimentary the facilities are for the employees. They’re cheerful and pleasant nonetheless, I guess hoping for their shot at the big time when they might be afforded a better working environment. Don’t these media companies actually make money?
An interesting day. My five year old was ecstatic, as was my mom. I think they were more psyched about this than I was, but I did get to have some fun.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
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6 Comments
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Is your whatever time of “fame” online anywhere? for those of us who missed it? I saw Stirrup, but missed you.
Nice run-down on your experience, Greg…thanks!
Next time, insist that the MSM come out here and conduct an interview in front of one of our “flophouses.”
John Stirrup is going to be on Channel 9 any minute now!!!!
You da man!
Maybe next time you can get interviewed on a network that people actually watch!