You’re scrolling through your feed when you come across an article “East High School Student Displays Confederate Flag on Car, drawing differing reactions.” You roll your eyes in disgust of another article displaying the side of East High the public has its opinions and reputation dead set on. Disbelief sets in on how news stations have yet again broadcasted the few students who do not reflect the 2,300 other students at East. Before you jump onto social media flooding the notifications of reporters and anchors for doing their job, think about life on the other side of the lens. That is just what two East High students decided to do

Two jittery journalism students from East await their job shadow at WHOTV HD, with clammy hands they extend their hands out in greeting to none other than evening anchor, Dan Winters. Right away Winters gets straight into a tour of the newsroom. The newsroom consists of desks for producers, assignment directors, reporters, photojournalists, and anchors. Assignment directors are in charge of knowing the whereabouts and sending out of reporters, cameraman, photojournalists, and cars when a story idea arises. Constant sound of the police scanner and clicking of keyboards fills the silence. When something catches the attention of the newsroom, assignment directors choose the reporter and cameraman and send them on their way. The afternoon meeting gets underway and news director Rod Peterson kicks things off introducing each producer. Each show has its own producer besides the 5-7 a.m. they have two. Each producer outlined how they pictured the show running, where each story fit in the ladder, and if any reporters or anchors had any questions. During the meeting Jodi, mentions the few details of her story, one being she got in contact with the girl who organized the protest, who also happens to be East High’s very own Jalesha Johnson. Eager to fill Jodi in we tell Dan and he takes us right over to her. With a subtle introduction Winters said
“These are East High’s stellar journalism students, and they have a few comments about your story.” We pull up two chairs next to hers and get lost in conversation. We eventually ask her about her personal experiences on the street as a reporter, good to note she has had no awful encounters. Whitworth also mentions that she just doesn’t dwell on the negative. Shortly after, Dan approaches us to continue the tour. He then took us to “ the guts of the station” as Dan would say, which happens to be four large towers that are full of cords and is lit up like a Christmas tree. He then led us to the design area. We had a quick chat and learned that the promotions that air before the news are made by Doug Sawyer.
Towards the end of the quick promotion how to with Doug he looks at Dan and says, “Have you taken them to the set yet?” One would have thought our seats were on fire with how fast we jumped out of them with huge grins on our faces. Allowing us to enter first, Dan holds the door open and our jaws drop. Straight to our left is the one and only Meteorologist, Megan Salois. We walk just fast enough to get there without seeming anxious, and wait for our introduction from Dan. As we shake hands Salois asks if we have any questions. For a reason we will never find out the only thing that seems to stumble out is
“So how much snow are we gonna get?”
After a quick laugh we let Salois get back to work and head out. Right when we walk out the door Dan’s phone starts ringing, he points to the lobby area and tells us to wait there while he finishes the call. Waiting there gives us an opportunity to reflect on how much we love our lives. We looked at the time and couldn’t believe three hours had already past. Mid fan girl conversation Winters comes back and we quickly act like nothing happened. He informs us that he is doing a Skype interview in 5 minutes, walks us over to the control room, where we will be waiting, and simply says
“This is where all the action happens.”
We take our seats and as Dan starts to walk out he adds “I have to go powder my nose now.” The next time we see him, he is on many of the screens displayed in front of us. Once the interview concludes Winters disappeared from the screens and appeared in front of us seconds later. We head back to his desk so he can make any changes needed.
While we awaited Dan editing his story, we spot the 4 o’clock co-anchor, Sonya Heitshusen at her desk, after a silent fan girl scream and arguing over who approaches her we awkwardly spit out Hi. Even when we caught her with no makeup and her hair up still making edits to her scripts she graciously gave us a few minutes to ask her questions. We asked her how she deals with people calling in and emailing about how her hair looks, what she is wearing and how harsh they can be but she assures us that being in this business you have to have tough skin and not let people’s opinions alter your look. Heitshusen said, “If I were to change my hair every time someone said they did not like it” Robbi chimes in “You’d have green hair” and we all laugh. “You just have to say thanks for writing in and thanks for watching the news, always be polite,” Heitshusen said. Sonya excuses herself to finish her scripts for the 4 o’clock news and we slip away to see if Dan is done. Dan emerges flustered and directs us back to his desk. We sit in shock as Dan slams on his keyboard to finish his scripts minutes before the 4 o’clock news.
“Keep up, we’re going to be late”, as Dan runs into the break room to warm up his coffee five minutes before the show starts. We follow him down the hall and wait for Dan to get camera ready and quickly run onto set. Sitting in awe of the calm, cool and organized 4 p.m. news, Sonya and Dan invite us to sit behind the desks during a recorded part of the show. Quick fix of the hair and we excitedly hopped up and put on our best TV smile. With a few minutes to spare we asked how do they not freeze up when the light turns on and the Teleprompter starts to run. Winters said, “It is really nerve racking.” Heitshusen chimes in, “It is just repetition, you just get used to it.” “Just like swinging a bat”, Winters said as he used his job as a comparison to softball. The cameraman’s 1 minute warning scares us off the platform as we resume being starstruck from our seats behind the camera. As Dan finished introducing the 5 p.m. news, he removes his mic, grabs his coffee, and waves us out the door. Bursting with compliments about the show, Dan walks us past the news director’s office, “Our future replacements are heading out”, Winters jokes. Peterson jumps quickly out of his desk to say his goodbyes. “Thank you guys so much for coming, You guys are welcome back here anytime, we want this to feel like your second home” Peterson warmly said. We then grabbed the rest of our things and headed toward the exit. “So when do we start?” We jokingly say in the elevator on the way down to the lobby.
One short afternoon at WHOTV was not enough to fully understand the demands of being in the newsroom, but was just enough to wrap our heads around the demands of being on the other side of the lens. As reporters and anchors fall to victim of the negative stories about schools, they are just the warm, smiling faces we see on our screens. They are only doing their job and getting the most important news into the ears of the viewers. They are not just a pretty face to manipulate but these are the friendliest, hard-working, and reliable people you will meet. So before you go onto facebook to make a nasty comment about Sonya’s hair, or how you do not like Dan’s glasses, remember they are humans just like us. We all know if we woke up tomorrow and there was no news, the world would not go round. Thank you WHOTV.

. Robbi Boggess, Laurie Custard