“This may do nobody any good”, The Famous words of Edward R. Murrow in a speech to the RTNDA convention in 1958. His speech was a warning to the producers of a new technology called television. He recognized that this “box of wires and lights” can “teach, illuminate and inspire” but so far was being used to distract, entertain, elude and amuse. Is the same true for design? Is it true for the design of newsrooms? Has our rational for designs become to elude and entertain? The discourse between design and mass media can be fragile; teetering between propaganda and a harsh reality. In one hand a set with too many corners or highly saturated reds may spell disaster whereas a curved desk with blues and wood grain draw a larger calmer audience. What we must realize is the settings role in the story telling that is our modern media.
As a culture we have come accustomed to being lied too and I mean that in the nicest way while still getting the point across. Fibs and misdirection are often used to guide us to the truth and lead us away from ourselves to find a new knowledge. This is true of all good stories, Hansel and Gretel never existed but this didn’t keep parents from telling their kids to be weary of strangers (especially ones with houses made of candy). Fables and parables are the sort of “lies” I am talking of (if you could even call them lies) when we seek to instill new knowledge. This is very true of the modern newsroom. The newsroom is designed to make you feel and understand what is being explained, but it is not meant to be a lecture, it is meant to be a story. It is in this setting that the newsroom has evolved.
Unlike the office park or the museum, which are both heavily designed for their occupants, the newsroom circles around the presentation of the story. This concept is a vestige from television news’ roots in A.M. Radio news. But unlike television, the radio-anchors had to create metal settings through soundscapes and audio effects. A.M radio was largely replaced by television news but the effects of news delivery have been mere iterations of its former format.
Television news came to the U.S. on March 9, 1954 when Edward R. Murrow and CBS aired the show “See It Now” and the newsroom was born. The set featured a desk representing morrow’s office and a “control room” with televisions and some knobs screwed into some plywood. From then on the majority of newsrooms employ a two-step set of the more intimate anchor desk juxtaposed with the nerve center. Each set serves its purpose to the story whether its creating an more personal moment for those one-on-one talks with the anchor during a national tragedy or the frantic but highly qualified fact-center for “up to the millisecond coverage of hurricane (insert comforting name here).
The modern newsroom has seen many innovations that have changed the atmosphere and spatial experience of the newsroom; for instance the switch to HDTV’s 9:16 aspect ratio has caused many studios to extend the edges of their sets. Beyond the aspect ratio the invention of live digital composting has created a new dimension in the perceived visual interior of the newsroom. For the anchors and everyone working on set there is just the physical world of the desk, background, equipment and props; but for the viewing audience there is an added layer of graphic quality that must be factored into the perception of the space. Often this added layer is imbued with swirling objects in what appears to be infinite space always to the right or left of the anchor. Out of this universe pops the caption of the moment and we are given a sense that out if this vast amount of knowledge (collected in the nerve center) a story reveals itself. Yet the calmness of the anchors voice keeps us unaware of the drama unfolding. The design of the newsroom establishes a visual credibility for the network and it links the story telling to the work beyond the story. The best analogy is taken from the intro to the movie “Anchorman” when they introduce the news staff one by one. Each anchor quickly looks up from deep thought as if he’s been interrupted from his work to introduce himself to the camera and the audience. Every time I see a weatherman switching to a new map on one of those touch screens I am reminded of this ostentatious “head bob” from Anchorman. Though this creates a moment of pretense, this is where the set takes on an active role in the presentation of the story. It is easy to see the role of set design if you saw Katie Couric at a children’s desk at the preschool talking economic policy. Many would be unnerved by the distraction of screaming infants, but somehow an obscure multicolored object moving in ubiquitous space has a calming effect. I for one would prefer the screaming kids to lessen the blow of economic recession.
The design of a news studio, though it may make similar gestures, is very different from an interior design due to a single leading premise, perspective. For the whole of great architecture the design begins and ends with the human eye while in the design of a news studio a designer must bow to the camera. This is why newsrooms exhibit strange characteristics such as the overly bloated desk and enormous rear projected backdrops. Most humans have two eyes with a focal point at 22mm(distance from the lens to the retina) while for most cameras having only one lens at 22mm would appear as a super wide angle nearing the fisheye range. If the news were shot at such a focal length we would see everything we recognize as peripheral vision in complete focus. Since our televisions are not the size of our walls this would result in a very shallow foreground and would create a very obscure perspective since we would have to be 22mm from the anchors nose to fill the frame, making for a rather intimate shot (especially in HD). Therefore newsroom design is always overcoming this initial premise; so where a building may lose much of its character in a photograph a newsroom losses its character in physical space. One exhibiting characteristic is the depth of the newsroom from background to foreground. In most newsrooms the background is at least twelve feet from the back of the news desk, a rather far space to walk for two maybe three anchors but this is for lighting purposes. As with a studio photographer, most newsrooms have a backlight for the set and a key light for the anchor. The key light angle is the determining factor. At an angle between 20 to 30 degrees the backdrop has to be far enough away that the key light doesn’t cast shadows on the backdrop. This would make the set appear staged which brings us to another dilemma; it is staged.
The next hurdle the newsroom designer faces is both overcoming and embracing the deception. In one hand you want to hide the fact that this is a set and in another you want to exploit it. For lighting purposes you want to hide it by casting soft shadows on the anchors and achieve a fairly balanced light level. But most newsrooms unabashedly show all of the lighting equipment in certain shots thus exposing a glimpse of the reality of the set, like “Saturday Night Live” before a commercial break. Also many sets employ a cityscape backdrop, as if there is a window right behind the anchors. NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams’ new set even features a backdrop of a newsroom next to an actual window to the newsroom. This way they can have shots from the side of the deck that show an entire newsroom in the background, even though half of it is just a picture with some mullions glued onto it.
This brings up the coveted news desk. The anchor desk has leaped into a category of its own defying many of the characteristics of a conventional desk. Most news desk appear as though they could seat 40 people and are made of solid wood with a vortex to outer space swirling in the center of them. But the modern news desk primarily seats one to four and sometimes even eight anchors in one shot. Again we must realize that it is centered around “the shot” and four people around a conventional desk would look foolish, so you must create a desk that can give each anchor the sense that this desk belongs with all of them and they all can fit as if they were seated individually. The news desk is oddly proportioned to keep the intimacy of a single anchor at their desk when you have multiple anchors, commentators and guests at the same table. Most news desks manage this intimacy and provide for different shot possibilities with curves. Many news desks employ an “L” shape so the anchor can turn to one side an interview and turn to another an address the viewing audience. Also with local news desks there is usually a long inwardly curved desk so that the anchors on the ends do not appear to fall off in a straightforward shot and so the camera can swing left and right without moving its base or shooting someone at an angle.
When we compare the newsroom to other forms of set design such as sit-coms, late night shows, or daytime talk shows, the news sets seem to have a closer relationship with award shows though it has characteristics of the others. The newsroom shares the desk with late night shows and many even had the famous condenser microphone on the desk but the late night shows maintain a casual nature to them. Daytime talk shows like “Ellen” or “The View” seem to maintain simplicity to the graphic nature of the design whereas newsrooms layer complexity into their graphics. By awards show I mean “The Emmys” or “The Video Music Awards”. These shows usually exhibit a high number of shooting angles and placements along with subtle to drastic changes in the set per shot as the night progresses. National News stations like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox also share material similarities with lots of metals and printed plastic panels. But most similarly is the black reflective flooring of almost all newsrooms coupled with triangular lighting trusses. These materials and their uses give the newsroom the same ephemeral qualities of the latest awards show. Most talk shows employ a carpet or wooden floor that symbolizes longevity and “hominess”. The modern newsroom likens itself to the nightclub where graphic presentation and lighting make up the defining material qualities. Though regional and local news try to employ wood veneers and carpets they do so only as an exception to the rule and distance themselves from leading networks.
The designs of the newsroom have evolved to progress the fleeting nature of mass news. With every passing day a new story that we may choose to acknowledge the lasting effects of, or we just have to wait till tomorrow when the thought will be out of our head. Likewise with architecture we may choose to acknowledge concepts that embody lasting qualities; that take refinement and perseverance. Or we may amuse our clients with craft and distraction as artful expression passes with the wind.