Having the honor to speak to children is one of the coolest parts of my job. I went to my daughter's Kindergarten class a little while back to talk about being a Community Helper. The kids seemed to enjoy it and I had a great time. Well, I guess it made a great impression on them too because about a week later their teacher contacted me and asked if they could come tour YNN.
We have a lot of tours come through and I have to admit they were some of the best! Ok- I'm a little bias- I know them- but still! About 40 children, two classes, showed up for a day of fun and they did it in style. Such well behaved and smart little children. They asked wonderful questions and were very respectful and quiet in a place of business.... and any parent can tell you that's a HARD thing for a kindergartner! They were GREAT!
First stop was to visit Meteorologist Mike Bono in the YNN Weather Studio. Mike talked to them about what it's like to be a Meteorologist, how he works the computers and showed them how he uses the "green screen" to project the forecast up on to the wall and talk about the weather. Then he gave the children a chance to go up and see themselves on the weather camera! Soo cool!
Then the children got to meet one of our Anchor/Reporters, Solomon Syed. Solomon told the children the best part of his job was meeting new people. He gets to do it every day he's out in the field reporting the news. On this day he was so excited to meet the students. You can tell they loved talking to him!
Imagine watching 24 hour News- ALL DAY LONG! That's what our Master Control Operators do! Michelle talked to them about their job to make sure we are on the air. They also look for anything that's not supposed to be there (a typo, etc.) and they cue the control rooms when there are live shots.
Shari is a Director. She showed the students all the buttons she pushes and what they are for. Her job is to direct me to read the news, direct the audio operator to run the audio and basically make sure we are able to tell you the news.
Gary our News Director is a dad of 2- so it was just a matter of time before he stopped by to say hi to the students. They learned from him about what it's like to manage at a news station. With how busy he is- the kids were lucky to get to hear from him!
The students were able to meet many other people at the station but I was not able to take a picture of them all. I was so thankful they all took time to share what they do with the children. We at YNN love what we do and we hope the children loved learning about it!
We hope now that when they turn on the tv they can share what they learned with their parents- and make them dedicated viewers!
