At NBC Studios in New York I sat behind a real news desk and read the news to camera. Reading was easy. Sounding like I was not reading was the hard part.
NBC logo used with permission. Abby's Labs is independent and was not paid for this story.
On our trip to New York we went on the tour at NBC Studios, inside a famous skyscraper called 30 Rockefeller Plaza. At the end, you get to make your own little show. I ended up leading the news.
## The building is full of television history
30 Rock opened in 1933, and NBC has made radio and television there ever since. One room, Studio 8H, started out as a giant radio studio for an orchestra. Since 1975 it has been home to Saturday Night Live, and the sets are built, used live and pulled apart again every week.
The TODAY show is made in a studio at street level with big windows, so people stand outside holding signs, hoping to be seen at home. The crowd is part of the show.
## A sound stage is not like a normal room
The first thing I noticed was the ceiling. It is really a grid full of hundreds of lights, and every one is aimed on purpose. The second thing was the quiet. The walls are built to keep out New York's noise, so the microphones only hear what the show wants.
## Reading the news is harder than it looks
The words scroll up on a teleprompter, which is a sheet of special glass right in front of the camera lens. The camera sees straight through it, and you see the words. So it looks like you are talking to the viewer.
But you have to look at the lens, not the glass. Read at the right speed. Sound like a person, not a robot. And if you trip on a word, you just keep going, because live television has no second take.
## The people you never see
Behind every presenter is a whole team. A director picks which camera you see. A producer keeps everything on time to the second. A floor manager counts the presenter in with their fingers, silently. I only had to read. They had to make it all work.
I have a lot more respect for the people on the news every night now.