There's nothing like wandering through an empty newsroom
The TVNZ newsroom is a very unique place to work. Hell - any newsroom is a very place to work. Our one is staffed 19 hours of the day and otherwise virtually staffed 24 hours a day (courtesy of our New York and London friends). At its height, you have perhaps 50 people actively working on The News.
But there's nothing quite like an empty newsroom.
It's sort of like being in an airport terminal or maybe Parliament overnight when all the people have left. There's something almost liminal about it.
I bring this up because the TVNZ newsroom used to be physically staffed 24/7 but this is now no longer the case given many-a-recent cuts. This means it's not that hard to find yourself in a totally empty newsroom. Like I did myself last year when I procrastinated my way into finishing my submission into the *cancel 1News.co.nz restructure* at 3am. The last time someone's shift ends in the newsroom is 9pm.
Since security is relatively lax, you can basically wander alone through the newsroom after that, or wander through to the studios. Pace around as much as you'd like. The TVs are all still on and the motion-activated lights assume you're here for a good reason.
This is a place that millions of people see only through a screen and you're wandering around it aimlessly confused at why you haven't gone home.
But, any minute, if there's an earthquake down south, you're the man left holding the phones and probably expected to leap into action - or at least call a manager. Not being on shift is not an excuse for ignoring big news if you can help it. Much like how journalists never quite lose the mandate to do your job even if you're not on the clock.
There's a weird feeling that you're the last person left standing representing what is otherwise this huge and big machine. That if something happened right now, this whole dormant apparatus around you could theoretically spring to life, with you as the only person physically present to get it going.
When you're standing in such an expectant physical space - one so catered to collective energy when it's humming with life - the desolation feels deeply unnatural.
It's almost post-apocalyptic feeling. Almost a sacred, yet ambient thing.
There's probably some melancholy and poignancy in that emptiness given that it wasn't always this way.
Cuts and restructures and staffing limitations being the things leaving it empty.
You're the last person in this newsroom, all this infrastructure around you - satellites, cameras, studios, monitors, computers - and somewhere out there, things are still happening. And this whole massive apparatus around you exists to capture and process and broadcast that. But, right now it's just you left.
And yes it's time to go home.
