Mary Ann Ahern has been the political anchor for NBC5 since 2006 after she joined in 1989. I toured NBC5 NEWS and sat in on a news segment that covered multiple stories, including the leaked groupchat discussing the Yemen bombings and 23andMe filing for bankruptcy. 

The segments are filmed by the anchors giving an introduction to the story before the pre-recorded information plays. For example, during the segment discussing 23andMe, the anchors provided an introduction, stating to check your 23andMe accounts as the company filed for bankruptcy. Then, the pre-recorded information about the bankruptcy and what users can do to protect their information plays. For political segments– such as political anchor Mary Ann Ahern’s– the camera does not cut away and she reads off a teleprompter to deliver the report. This also happens for weather reports or, for example, a report of a cold case reopened. Ahern said later that she writes all of her segments herself when they are assigned to her so she is already familiar with the content she is reporting on. For example, she researched the Yemen bombings groupchat the morning before her segment; wrote it and then sent it to producers. . 

Because it is afternoon news, the environment is less professional and more relaxed than morning news, mostly due to the larger amount of stories that the morning news has to cover.

At 5pm, the segment wraps and the room begins the transition to different stories. Ahern gave me a full tour of the newsroom which contained her office and the offices of other reporters and the specific desk that all their assignments are given out at. The whole room is split into different sections of reporters with certain anchors having offices. This allows reporters to collaborate with each other as they are split into their respective areas with sport reporters, political reporters with political reporters.

The most interesting aspect of the building was their multiple TVs all over the newsroom and control room that include competing channels: ABC and CBS. This is so that NBC can always keep track of what other channels are airing to make sure they are not overlapping content at consecutive times and to ensure they are not missing real time news. 

Ahern was professional, while also being excited to teach learning journalists the ins and outs of broadcast reporting.