Students join Today Show crowd
The Media Living Learning Center students visited New York City on a networking and experience trip over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, Jan. 16-19. During the trip, they met with alumni and toured the offices of New York’s famous media sites.
By Josh Krathwohl
We arrived at The Today Show at 30 Rock at around 8 a.m. For a brief second it seemed as if no one else was there. But we soon saw the line started on an adjacent street.
I, for one, had never been to a big city before and was quite disorientated by the way the line worked. It was nowhere near the gate that went into the standing show area. A man yelled about the free bagels, cider, coffee and doughnuts that could be ours.
This, however, was promptly proven untrue when I tried to get a bagel and was told that they were out of bagels. This is New York. Are bagels not a food group here?
After a few minutes in the early morning cold, we were let in. Bags were checked. We went under a banner. There were two stations to make signs and some fairly friendly security guards. We then were ushered into a skinny railing around a central square. We were given ponchos to wear. (Full disclosure, I didn’t wear mine but they were very nice.) A young woman who was probably a producer came out and pumped up the crowd with her assistant and her camera crew.
She picked out different people she wanted throughout the show and made a special crowd piece to Twist and Shout by the Beatles. We could see the anchors inside the building not too far off. There was also a monitor that reflected what was airing at the time or what the anchors were doing during commercials. Pre-packaged clips were not broadcast over the loud speaker, but we could hear the anchors even from outside.
Some of us briefly appeared on the show—for better or worse. One of us held up a sign that said “This is a sign.”
At one point towards the end, the anchors came out to banter and do the weather in front of the crowd. The producers and camera people coached the audience into excitement and, despite the fact it was very early and very rainy, it worked. People were excited to be at this institution of a show and be on television. Who doesn’t want to be on television?
Read more student reports from the Media LLC’s experiences in New York.