The Tour:

The tour is splitted into 9 different parts (a 10th is coming this summer; it will be small studio set whith a desk and an anchor-chair where you are able to sit inside and anchor. Graphics will be added and you're then able to buy the piece you anchored on DVD or/and VHS, a CNN Inside Tour employee told me.

The tour starts with the Introduction Theater, where you basically get a short roundup on what CNN is. The next part is a Studio Overlook. On the tour you could view the set of f.e. Lou Dobbs from above. (I however was allowed to go inside the newsrooms and studios and were able to get as close as you could get (thanks again to the employee at CNN who gave me the private tour). This is followed by the Teleprompter part, where you can read a short piece of a news story from a teleprompter. I was the only one who actually did this and the tour guide actually said I was really doing well because I had no idea about what the text actually would be about (anchors inform themselves) - for your information, the piece I read off the teleprompter that day was about the Star Wars movie premiere. The Control Room was next, unfortunately it was around noon when I visited so there was not much going on tnside. The guide explained who actually is in the control room and what their job is. A video of the studio-action before a 'Lou Dobbs Tonight-show' followed. The video contained hours of preparation (fast forward) before the show aired and, what was being done to run the show smoothly. After you head over to a Satellite-Wall where you see which parts of the world are covered by CNN, you walk by a wall with expressions the CNN folks are using in the control room. One of them was 'Loose the bug" which means that the CNN logo has to disappear. The CNNfn newsroom was next. You could see the newsroom where Anderson Cooper was working at a desk. At that stop, a video was being shown of how the newsroom in Atlanta reacted as 9/11 happened (the same footage that aired in the CNN Presents documentaries). Besides that some 'War in Iraq" newsroom footage was also shown. The 8th part of the tour was the Events Hallway. It showed highlights of CNN's coverage of events beginning in 1980. Highlights included the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Columbia Shuttle Disaster. The final part was the Conclusion Theater. CNN anchors like Judy Woodruff and Bill Hemmer explained why they wanted to become a CNN journalist. They also shared their most memorable events as well as the challanges they faced as a CNN anchor.

FYI Inside CNN is located inside Time Warner Center - The Shops at  Columbus Circle (8th Ave between 58th and 60th) on the 3rd floor in New York City. Inside the store you can buy T-Shirts, mugs, special CNN25 merchandise or bags with CNN graphics on it. A large TV is airing CNN as well as in all (at least many) elevators at TW Center. On the picture below, you see a tour that was about to get started. Tours leave every 10 minutes. You're bag is being checked by security personnel and a X-Ray machine. Photos are not allowed during the tour. The tour takes about 40 minutes and costs 15$ for an adult.

American Morning

The American Morning studio is located inside the Time Life Building at the Avenue of Americas (a few minutes away to TW Center by foot). During American Morning, you're not allowed to go to the left (picture on the right) outside the studio because that's where a camera shoots the water fountain you see during an AM opening. If there's no broadcast, you can go there and see 3 TV's in which CNN Headline News, CNN USA and CNN International are being shown. Outside the studio, there's a big newscrawl which of course displays the latest headlines. Below this "ticker", a few TV's are positioned which broadcast CNN 24/7 (with sound on one side). As you see on the picture below, Soledad O'Brien and Jack Cafferty were inside the studio the day I went there. The photo was taken during a break. You can see through the glass, but it's a bit hard to see through. The best position to look through is on the north side of the studio (photo 1). There you have a great view of the set. And: I was on CNN! At least 2x, but of course only for a split second. I'm sorry, I don't have any tapes but if someone has recorded the show, it was between 8:30am - 9:00am on Thursday, May 19th. Thanks for reading all of this, if you have any questions about it, feel free to post them in the forum. Download video from outside the AM studio (.avi, 0,9 MB)