Inside the Green Rooms
We still haven’t fully recovered from last week’s surprise flash-in-the-pan celebrity-dom, where in the space of four days, our first foray into the White House landed Fishbowl D.C. on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN (twice), and four nationally syndicated public radio shows. It was certainly a whirlwind week and briefly dropped us into a lifestyle very much not our own.
The green rooms of the cable news channels, where guests wait between make-up and moving to the set for their segment, offer a Washington subculture all their own. We met the president of the Czech Republic, along with his attendant aides and Secret Service detail, in the Fox News green room (“Excuse me, Mr. President, I need to take my make-up off.”), and the Iraqi and Afghan ministers of women’s affairs early Thursday morning at CNN.
Each green room was intimidating in its own way, and we thought we’d start off this week with a little review of these famous guest facilities at the three major cable channels.
More after the jump.
MSNBC: Surprisingly enough, MSNBC’s green room was the only one of the three that contained green: thick carpet lent the whole room a sense of a rich suburban summer lawn.
In the otherwise spacious but sparse green room, giant picture windows humble with their view (pictured above) of the Capitol Dome just a few blocks away. The message? You’re literally in the shadow of history. A round table and chairs towards the rear of the room guided one towards a packet-based choose-your-own instant coffee machines. We chose instead water dispensed into a plastic cup.
Nice Unique Touch: Three TVs provide access to all the various news channels, so a guest doesn’t feel obligated to watch MSNBC.
Fox News: FNC’s windowless green room, the smallest and darkest of the three, offered comfortable couches and a single TV, tuned helpfully, of course, to Fox. Glossy pictures of actually famous people (mostly senators and Cabinet officials) being interviewed on Fox shows lined the walls. The message? You’re in powerful company when you come on Fox. Unfortunately we didn’t get to inspect the beverage offerings first-hand because the helpful guest greeter brought us bottled water while we were still in the make-up chair next door.
Nice Unique Touch: Fox News provides its guests with a videotape of the show segment on the way out the door.
CNN: In its own way, CNN’s green room had the most history and was thus most intimidating. It’s walls were apportioned with numerous photos of history as recorded by CNN’s cameras–each framed print of the Challenger explosion, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square, the war in Bosnia, and the Pan AM 103 bombing is instantly recognizable and includes the little CNN logo in the corner of the screen, as viewers would have seen it. The message? History happens live on CNN. Also props for the well-stocked fridge, offering a selection of sodas, juice, and bottled water.
Nice Unique Touch: The green room coffee table offers a selection of national newspapers so guests can scan the headlines before early morning appearances.
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Nadine Cheung
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