(upbeat music)
- [Marni Hughes] In 1964,
Walter Cronkite said that,
in order to seek the truth,
you have to tell both
sides of the story.
(violin music)
- We're gonna launch
this show in the middle
of the worst public
health crisis
this country has
seen in a century.
- [Director] 40 minutes
till air.
- [Joe] We fit into an
interesting space in Prime time,
because most of that bandwidth
is consumed by opinion and talk.
- [Rob] Hey, Joe?
- [Joe] Hey, what's going on?
- [Director]
So 43, where is she?
- [Assistant] She's there.
- [Floor Director] Once you do
your first hit for the
bar testimony,
we'll bring you over here.
- [Director] Can I see
44 please?
Rob, good. Thank you.
46 at the weather wall,
Lovely, watch shading on 46.
- News Nation
is all about news.
Absent of bias,
absent of opinion.
- [Director] We're two and a
half minutes away from air
after I cut off you'll be on 42.
You're gonna come
out to a three shot
after I cut off a 44, Rob's
going to the main desk.
- [Jennifer] I think
we are so right now,
hyper focused on politics.
There's so much other news
out there on a daily basis.
- [Director] Okay, stand
Negovan by.
Joe, can you hear me?
- [Joe] I've had several
people say to me already.
This show is exactly what
I've been looking for.
I don't want someone
to tell me how I think.
Tell me the news.
- [Director] Turn the lights
down in the weather
center, please.
Who's in the background there.
Who's walking around.
- There's a million
people at the weather wall.
- Get the people out of there.
- [Rob] The hard part
is behind the scenes.
We do the light lifting.
The people you don't see
do the heavy lifting.
- [Director] We're all
good, one minute to air.
- [Rob] The viewers
should know that
and on air people
should remember.
- 45.
- [Director] Okay, she knows
she's coming out to camera 43.
Joe knows he's coming out to 42.
Okay, 30 seconds.
- I hope that they
feel it's trustworthy.
I hope that they feel
it's entertaining.
We are going to deliver
the news without the bias.
- All right
team, let's rock and roll.
- Have a good show
in ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five, four,
ready camera 43,
three, two, one,
fade up 43 music.
- [Marni] Good evening, I am--
- [Director] Ready 42.
(plane engine roaring)
(bright upbeat music)
- [Sean] The building of News
Nation for me starts
in October of last year we
first presented the idea.
So we called it project neutral.
And the reason we call
it a project neutral
was because we're
so sick and tired
of the polarization of news.
News should not be polarizing.
I approached our chairman
and CEO, Perry Sook
about using the assets
of our newsrooms.
When Nexstar said they
were buying Tribune,
we were gonna put
together 110 newsrooms,
5,400 reporters, bunch of
helicopters, satellite trucks.
And it made sense to
figure out what to do next,
utilizing the strengths
of all those assets.
About three or four
weeks after that meeting,
I'm sitting in my
office and Jen Lyons,
who's one of the
most accomplished
local news directors
in television was in my
office and she said--
- Hey, you're in
charge of WGN America.
You know what you
really should do?
You should do a
newscast in Prime time,
a national newscast
that's unbiased.
- I actually had planned
on approaching Jen
about the position anyway,
and she made it
real easy for me.
- A couple of weeks
later here I am.
I'm working for
WGN America because
we kinda had the same thought.
(bright upbeat music)
- [Sandy] We've fallen into the
trap of taking a big story
and everyone having
an opinion on it.
Everyone's shouting everyone
talking about issues,
but not really
understanding the issue.
- It became inherently clear
as I would watch the
Cable News Networks to try
and find out what was going on.
I couldn't find out
what was going on.
- They kind of abandoned
news a long time ago.
When you look at the
other Cable News channels.
- And that's what led me to say,
there needs to be
a national newscast
because there's not
enough information.
It's only centered
on DC and politics.
- [Sean] There's a lot
that happens in the middle
of the country and we're gonna
be able to fill that void.
- It's so funny because when
we set out to do this project,
so many people were like,
how are you gonna do that?
And it's simple.
This is what we
learned in school.
- In my journalism class,
we were trained a certain way
and that was to report
facts without bias.
- This is what journalism
is supposed to be.
And this is what
local journalism,
local newsrooms do right now.
They're not telling
people how to think.
It's the Cable Network model
that we're not going to do.
- It hasn't been
done in a long time
and it has not been
done to this scale.
- So we announced in
January, January 15th,
that we were going
to do this project.
I flew to New York,
I flew to DC.
We kind of started
getting everything to go.
And then boom.
- The pandemic hit
right as we were hitting
the gas on this thing.
- And it brought everything
to a screeching halt,
but we had to keep going.
We had a deadline,
we knew we were gonna
put this on the air.
(clock ticking)
- Does anyone
have a fever, cough,
or shortness of breath?
Have you come in contact with
anyone known to have COVID-19?
In the last 14 days
have you traveled
to a normal free hotspot.
- 98.4
- 99.1
- 97.8.
This is the Bramco safe
orientation,
workers must comply with
all OSHA regulations.
Hard hats, safety glasses,
long sleeve shirt, long pants,
and work boots
required at all times.
Now with coronavirus going
around don't wander anywhere
you don't need to be
within the building.
Be exactly at the News studio.
- Started the project
second week of March,
we were here a couple
of weeks and that's
when the COVID-19
really hit hard.
- COVID-19 was
such a curve ball.
And as we were planning
to build this newsroom,
it became suddenly urgent.
(upbeat music)
- [Gary] We left for a week
between Nexstar WGN
BRAMCO we all tried
to figure out the next step.
How do we get the work done?
How do we keep people safe?
There was some very good
protocol put together.
Face masks became mandatory.
The wristbands are for answering
the questions properly.
Not long after we
got that started,
they brought in the
temperature checks.
We staggered start time so
that everybody wasn't coming
in at the same time,
we'd have crews
starting at six, seven,
eight o'clock so
that it gave people
an opportunity to get
through the protocol
and get to work
and be productive.
- And in a strange way
it was nice to be able
to hire so many people when so
many people were losing jobs.
(bright upbeat music)
- With all the cancellations,
from all the concerts,
plays, everything else.
The stagehands were
not in a good spot.
And this put a lot of guys
to work for quite some time.
(bright upbeat music)
- It actually felt good that
we were in the hiring phase.
We had construction when
everyone else was in
shutdown mode.
It slowed us down a little bit,
but we were able
to stay on course.
- The schedule was
extremely tight.
And when we got
involved in the project,
they had a rough idea of
what they wanted here,
but we didn't have drawings
for what we're gonna build.
But the demolition got started.
- [Jennifer] A small team
at Channel 9 got together.
And we kind of sketched one out.
- [Sandy] We sat in a room
with the construction crews,
with the designers,
with the musicians,
with the graphic artists.
And it was just a very
open ended up conversation.
And within a few weeks they
came back with drawings.
- And we have these
six screens here,
which can go to
every city in America
that we're covering or
wherever the top story is.
- [Sandy] The set is modern.
It's clean.
It has beautiful technology.
- Time zones up here.
We digitize those.
- It's really something
I've never seen before.
We kinda came up
with a small version
of it and then we put
it on steroids basically
when we took it to
the set designer.
- [Sandy] I think it'll
just help our storytelling
and just showing the
beauty of our country.
And we can really make it
as big as we can imagine.
- When you come in, there's
gonna be all these monitors.
And so I'll just walk
you through the show.
So you guys have in your
head, what we're gonna do.
Now, we'll be
like, good evening.
There's a pandemic.
And in St. Louis, they're
worried about school.
- [Dave Harpe] Jen is currently
showing our director
what we got going on
with the overall set.
- The nicer the home, the
kind of the better experience
there may be.
- And then those monitors.
So at the end of we've got
more News Nation coming up.
And we're saying that
the monitor slowly
are all automated and go flat.
(bright upbeat music)
-Early in April,
we had construction
documents to go ahead
and start the process
of building the set.
(bright upbeat music)
But even at that point,
there were still things
that we didn't know.
- If there is
a way to be able to,
recess is not the word,
but maybe can those drop
down any further than that?
- [Jen] It's too high.
- It's at 32 inches.
- [Jen] That feels fine.
- [Sean] We have a
lot of working space
in here that we can do.
- I think it looks okay,
right don't you think?
- Election night, breaking
news coverage, weather events.
This is a very versatile set.
- This is the main
two shot.
Skyline's behind it.
If we were to add
the meteorologist
and the breaking news anchor,
where would they go?
- You're real tight
to your two guests.
If you come off of them,
it's a better looking shot,
if you're working
with three cameras,
you can do a four shot, a
single, a single or a two.
- So my only thought
is on election night,
where is panelists are gonna be
and how we going to
produce election night
with a couple of other
people on the set.
- People don't watch it as set.
They watch the content,
but the set is the living room.
It's not about how beautiful
and glamorous the house is
it's the company
that they're with.
- I can tell you
that I've never built
something like this
before all over Zoom.
- [Sandy] I think we only
met four people in person
that we hired before COVID-19
shut everything down.
- We did Zoom call after
Zoom call after Zoom call
to try and find
the right people.
And it's kind of amazing.
I never thought we could do it.
- And so suddenly I was
hiring our news anchors.
Sight unseen they
never met me in person.
They never came to our building.
- We didn't wanna
look for anchors
that were branded with
any specific network.
We wanted to look for a team
that had done a
lot of local news.
(bright upbeat music)
- I approached them (laughs).
I heard News Nation
was happening
and I wanted to be part of it.
(bright upbeat music)
- I saw right up on one of the
websites that covers TV news.
Told my agent, sniff around,
see what these folks
in Chicago are up to.
(bright upbeat music)
- I was interested in this
project from the jump.
I went to Sandy
and Jen and said,
"I don't know what
you're looking for,
or where you are in this
process, but I'm interested."
- Usually you have
people come in
and sit on set
next to the person
that you're trying to fill.
And usually you're
trying to fill one hole,
not an entire cast.
- What are your
favorite gestures
when you're doing the forecast?
- I'm a big fan of the
warm air from the south.
- We got on Zoom with Albert
and within 10 minutes,
Jennifer offered
him a plane ticket
to come and fly to Chicago.
And I just remember laughing.
I just thought, well,
that's blown our whole.
- It was a email from
Jennifer Lyons on a Wednesday,
a Zoom call on a Thursday.
And the next Monday I was
here in Chicago interviewing
and then a week after that,
it was signing paperwork.
- [Sandy] We basically hired him
within four days of meeting him.
- And I think all he
does is watches the weather.
- We went out,
did Marni tell you about
dinner the other night?
A handful of us went out
for dinner the other night
and Albert and Gerard,
our two meteorologists
were with us.
And you could tell the
clouds were gathering
and these two were on
their phones on the radar.
And the waiter brought our food.
And Albert said, you might
wanna move us under some cover.
The rain's coming.
And the waiter said,
"How long do we have?"
And Albert said, "12 minutes."
And 12 minutes later
here came the rain.
- People can smell when
something is forced or phony
or an act, or you're
just turning it on
because the cameras are on.
When it's real and
genuine and organic,
I think that that comes across.
- We are passionate
about what we do.
We're dedicated to our mission
and we're gonna have
some fun along the way.
- Every one up on that desk
is a seasoned, professional.
We're also all, I
think good people
who take the job seriously,
but also know when to have fun
and again, to be authentic
and relatable and human.
- [Marni] What is your
go to dance moves?
- Oh, Marni, well played.
[indistinct]
- [Sandy] There were so many
people who are interested
and the amount of resumes
we got was insane.
- And Sandy, the news
director to show you the power
of national exposure said,
"I have to admit I'm fan
girling a little bit right now,
because I was a morning
AP when you were doing
that overnight show.
And I thought you were
great on that show."
- [Sean] Rob Nelson is
one of New York's best.
And we were excited that he
wanted to move to Chicago.
- The offer came in March,
contract signed in April
and here we sit.
- Ladies and
gentlemen, Rob Nelson--
(crowd cheering drowns
out the speaker)
- [Sandy] It took a leap
of faith and said, yes.
And so we started hiring over
the computer and it
was extraordinary.
- And some of our
people that have come
producers and talent,
they've never been
to Chicago before.
And I said, "Trust us.
We're gonna do it."
- I left Seattle after eight
years on the evening news.
- Born and raised in
Southern New Jersey.
- I was born, I was
raised in Texas,
my entire career in Texas.
- [Marni] For me, it was a
leap of faith to leave a job.
And people that I loved.
- Marni Hughes is very
popular in Seattle,
but she's worked in Fort Wayne
and she's worked in
other Midwest markets.
- I grew up in
small town America.
And I think that
has prepared me for
what we're doing with News
Nation and who we wanna reach.
- [Sandy] We were
picturing her with Joe
and we hadn't even
hired Joe yet.
- [Sean] Joe Donlon came
from the Pacific Northwest
and worked in Chicago.
- I knew Jen and Sandy.
They had hired me in Chicago.
I trusted them.
And I knew that if
anyone could do this,
it's the two of them.
And I said,
"If I'm lucky enough to get
this opportunity, I am all in."
- Sign in sheet is
going around somewhere.
Make sure you signed in.
And again, so I know
who not to yell at.
Starting on the three week,
I think everybody knows we're
just about wrapped up
in studio three.
Second floor news room,
overhead rough-ins,
are moving forward.
I requested the sprinkler
guy to be here tomorrow.
I coordinate, right?
And so I don't necessarily know
everything about everything.
And I'm the first to admit that,
but I ask the right questions.
I get the right information.
And we pass that information
to the proper people.
(bright upbeat music)
- They used to joke that
I produced by committee.
I would talk to
everyone about it.
And then we would
bubble up to the top.
What was the story of the day?
We're doing political stories,
but we're not super political.
That's how I am.
I like everyone else to,
I'm generally the
person that will say,
"Well, what do you think?"
And I hear them out
because I wanna hear
what other people say,
because I'm not the
smartest person in the room.
(bright upbeat music)
- I really enjoyed
a job like this because it
was pushing the
envelope of what I do.
It pushed me to
investigate and learn.
And it's what makes
it interesting.
(bright upbeat music)
- [Dave] Now if you'd have
told me, at that meeting
that we would be
seriously talking
about structural reinforcements
to the 1960s buildings,
to support set, I probably
would have started drinking.
- A lot of times
when we take jobs,
people before us
laid those roads
and your job is to improve it.
Don't screw it up.
- [Jennifer] Everyone, this
is our temporary newsroom.
- We're committed on
building this out.
And I want this to be
a project, a broadcast,
a newscast that you're
proud of every day.
And you're proud to say
you come to work here
and that we are
true to our mission.
And you can say that we
really accomplished something
that nobody else has done.
And that is to put news on the
way the news used to be done,
which was absent bias
and just the facts.
So again, congratulations on
being part of the first wave
to hit the beaches
at Normandy here,
I'll be back a couple
of times in August
when we're into rehearsals.
- [Sean] It's a lot of work.
It's not like just coming
to work at a TV station
and taking over the newsroom.
Jen has had to build
something from scratch.
(bright upbeat music)
- The construction
has been unbelievable.
The pace at which
they're able to work.
Sometimes three shifts a day.
So 24 hours a day,
it has gone up quicker than
I could have ever imagined.
(bright upbeat music)
And it's exceptional.
The craftsmanship has
been just beautiful.
(bright upbeat music)
We're gonna start having the
editorial meetings every day.
We're gonna pretend
like it's the real deal.
And we're going to
discuss the ideas,
discuss what we need to get,
how are we going to
make it fact driven
and not opinion driven
and making sure we're getting
all sides of the story.
Not just the side that
we think we should have.
This there'll be
healthy discussions.
Everybody's opinion counts.
We won't discount anyone,
we'll just have the discussion.
So speak up.
So here we go.
And Richard's going to run this.
So go ahead, Richard, you're on.
- This is a bigger meeting
than it's normally going to be.
I'm gonna say, because
I use only people
will be spread out
across the day.
I think we'll start with
the digital people just
to see what's trending and
we'll do the zone producers,
talk to their zones.
Then we'll go to the
supervising producers,
and anybody else can jump
in and we'll go from there.
So digital, what do
we got, anything?
- It's snow in Wyoming?
Yeah, that's number one post--
- I think we will get
the benefit of a lot
of hard work at the local level.
All of these Nexstar stations,
more than 100 of them
and 5,400 journalists
are working hard
every day to create
this interesting content.
And what we're doing, is sort
of observing from 30,000 feet,
all of this content
across the country.
(gentle music)
- You ever heard
of Lake Oroville?
- No.
- It's too bad, you should have.
Sometime in early 2017,
after Trump had gotten in,
I saw the ratings in Sacramento
going through the roof.
I couldn't figure out why.
So I called the general manager.
She told me, well,
Lake Oroville is
why we're wall to wall coverage.
If this dam breaks, thousands
of homes are gonna be lost.
Billions of dollars
in destruction.
People are gonna die.
I said, "How come I've
never heard of it?"
Cause they were too busy
covering the first four weeks
of the Trump administration.
That's why.
- I think if the TV
industry has succeeded
in making two phrases
meaningless at this point,
breaking news and exclusive,
they slapped that graphic
and that label on everything.
- Our responsibility
is to communicate,
to report the facts and
to listen very closely
to what's happening so that
you at home can understand
what's unfolding right
before your eyes.
- I've heard people ask,
is there room for you
in this center lane?
And I would argue
there's plenty of room
because we're really
the only ones in it.
- [Marni] But at
the end of the day,
if you watch our newscast
and you agree with something
and you disagree with something,
then we have done our jobs
because we've told both sides.
- The question is,
will people watch?
They say this is what they want.
We're about to find out.
(bright upbeat music)
- It's a lot of people working
together to gather the news.
They're making beat calls.
They're finding out
what's going on.
They're getting information
from their sources
and the nice thing about
Nexstar and News Nation is
that people are working
in their community.
So the journalists are gathering
the news in their community.
- I wanna look at
this as sort of
a local newscast for the nation.
These aren't correspondents
who parachute in
for a few days and
cover the story
and then go back to New York,
go back to DC, go back to LA.
These are reporters
who know the community.
- And then
we have zone managers
and their sole job is to
pay attention to their zone
of the United States and
work with our newsrooms.
What's bubbling up
in each community.
- It down, it's a
more than a one thing.
- And there's a saying,
I learned long ago when I
was in journalism school,
that if your mother says
she loves you, check it out.
- So one of the things that
we looked at was
unconscious bias.
And we needed to figure
out how we can remove it,
even down to the word
because every word matters
- We have one
priority and that's
to deliver you
facts without bias.
We have people to fact check us.
- Was it a press conference?
Or was it just them literally
saying hydroxychloroquine
is a cure for the coronavirus?
- It was kind of--
- We have people
who will fact check.
I'm not in the newsroom,
but if I was, they'd
be fact checking me.
- I'll give you an
example of how this is,
it seems really straightforward.
But remember the other day,
when 150 health experts urged
the country to shut down?
Who are those health experts?
- We are an advocate
for the viewer.
Our agenda does not matter.
- So it's facts and
being right on track
with the message
and the information.
But it's also
beautifully told stories
that people wanna
stop and watch.
- So the News Nation app is
gonna be a 24/7 digital app.
And it's very important
we have an audio component
for people who are
jogging or in their car,
take a train in a big city.
I wanna make sure that
you can press listen
and get an updated newscast,
once an hour, 24 hours a day.
(bright upbeat music)
- People live busy lives.
They're constantly on the go.
And I know in my own
house, we're multitasking.
So we have to reach
people where they are.
And then it's also,
we're about entertaining.
- [Sean] We'll have
to use the radio team,
but at least they're
radio people.
You got a radio cast,
the quality audio
cast people on the go.
- It's important
folks to know that
we're there for them
seven nights a week.
And that includes every holiday.
We grab a wonderful
weekend team.
(bright upbeat music)
- They are devoting as many
resources to the weekend show
as they are to the weekday show.
Four different
personalities on that show,
but they're gonna develop
their own chemistry
and their own style.
(bright upbeat music)
- Rudabeh is going down she
just doesn't know it yet.
She's a player.
Don't let her fool you.
- We'll be live Christmas
Eve, Christmas day,
New Year's Eve, New Year's day.
We're doing news seven nights
a week, 365 days a year.
(bright upbeat music)
- [Rob] We're all walking into
this as the new kid in class.
But here's the thing,
the school is new too.
(bright upbeat music)
- There are people behind
the scenes working
hours and days
and often weeks to
produce what you see
when you tune into a newscast.
(bright upbeat music)
- [Jen} There's this shot here.
This will be as far
wide as we can go.
Can you ped up again
and show the shot
where we see the lighting grid?
Every detail is important
from the video that we shoot,
the interviews that we do,
the words that we choose,
the graphics that
are on the screen.
- So if we take a look
at our logo, News Nation,
very clean, very
minimal, but very bold.
- Those are all people behind
the scenes working
together to make sure
that you're getting
the best information.
(bright upbeat music)
- So they're really,
to me there hasn't
been that point
where you have to
wake up and go,
"Wow, look what we've done."
Because every day there's
a big changing event.
Tonight, there'll be rehearsals.
Tomorrow night, there'll
be weekend rehearsals.
- [Joe] We've been
proceeding here
as if we're on the
air each night.
- And so this thing
I don't really know,
I think it'll hit me
once it's on the air.
I think it's hitting
Jen right now.
As we're in rehearsals, it's
getting, 15, 16 hour days.
It's a grind cause we
wanna get it right.
- Even though we
aren't on the air,
we're going through it
every day as if we are.
- [Director] Stand by, ready,
camera 44, ready music.
(violin music)
- Ten, nine, eight, seven.
- [Rob] I'd say the first
year we're gonna develop.
We're gonna evolve.
- [Director] Six, five, four.
- How it all comes together.
There's a trillion
moving pieces to it.
- [Director] Three, two, one.
- We're gonna do what we do.
And we're gonna
focus on our mission
and we're gonna do
the best we can.
- You got 44 music cue.
- News Nation will
be a place people
can turn to for news they trust,
from people they know.
- [Joe] And look just by
virtue of the time we're on.
We are going to be
competing against some
of the biggest
names in television.
- I need a pan... and pan
Some of the biggest networks,
they have a big headstart,
but that's not gonna keep
us from what we're doing.
I think there is a place
for what we're doing
and I'm not going to worry
about what anyone else is doing.
I'm gonna worry about
what we're doing.
- Good question.
It is Tuesday, August 4th.
Welcome to News Nation.
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