On May 23, 2018, the journalists of The Charles Street Times went on a trip to the headquarters of News 12, Long Island. They began the trip at the beginning of second period and returned back to the high school near the end of the day.

In order to set the trip into motion, Mrs. Kelly, the teacher for the journalism class, stated it was really fortunate that the class managed to get on this trip, as it often fills up very quickly. The trip is free for students and is a part of the public relations department at New 12. Public relations focuses on the station’s relationships with the outside world. They try to promote a sense of community  among Long Islanders and attempt help various groups and organizations on the island.

The ultimate goal of this trip was to expose students to various parts of the world of journalism. Mrs. Kelly pointed out that most of the time, the students enrolled in journalism are always focused on the writing and editing part of a news article, but yet they are not really familiar with the broadcasting section of journalism. She also stated that she felt this trip would give the students a good insight on the reaching out to the public part as an aspect of journalism.

The group’s tour began at 9:30 a.m., and it was lead by Leslie Kilmer, who works within public relations. She took the group first to where all news is broadcasted from, and the students had a chance to learn about how the news anchors received what was going on, and how they were able to keep it consistent with real time. They observed all the equipment and even got a chance to practice delivering a weather report.  Christina Renault, an anchor for News 12, visited and talked with the students for a few moments to give them a bit more insight on being a news anchor. The group then traveled to editing, where all of the footage was compiled and made ready to be sent to your TV. Afterward, they traveled to graphic design to learn about the creation of sprites which are used during a broadcast. Finally, the group passed through writing, where all of the scripts read by the news anchors are produced. This concluded the group’s tour, and with that, they made their way to the On Parade Diner in Westbury for lunch. Ultimately, Mrs, Kelly and her group felt that their goal was achieved and that they took away a little more than what they thought they would.

Overall, the trip seemed to be a huge success. John Honahan said, “It was an interesting experience seeing how everything worked.” His fellow peer, Pete Moran, had similar thoughts on the trip saying, “I never realized how many layers there were to getting a story out to the public.”