CBS DFW MORNING NEWSCAST

AM3:08

It’s almost too quiet for a newsroom. Only the clacking of keyboards can be heard as anchors, producers and news writers prepare the lineup for the morning broadcast.

“Was she the passenger in the car? The woman who died?” asks one news writer who is reporting on a fatal traffic accident.

“Last we heard, she was the driver,” responds news producer Brenda Lawson, barely looking up from her screen. The mood is subdued, like almost any office toward the end of the workday. By this time, much of the team has already been at work for five hours chasing stories and writing copy for the 4:30 a.m. newscast.

A small news team works out of the CBS headquarters in our neighborhood on Northwest Highway; this particular broadcast is filmed in a studio in Fort Worth.

“As long as stupid people keep doing stupid things, we’ve always got work,” laughs field photographer James Pultz, keeping one ear on the police scanner. “You know the codes that make you stand up because they’ve found a dead body or something.”

It’s one of many tricks of the trade he’s learned from more than a decade spent pursuing news stories. He reads between the lines of chatter on the scanner like some people read tealeaves. “You can always tell when the cops shoot someone because it gets really intense, and then it’s quiet,” he says, adding that there is usually no mention of the shooting, just an officer saying, “confirm.”

“It took me years to figure that out,” he says.

AM

3:20

All those stories are filtered to Karen Borta, who at this moment is wrapped up in a parka with wooly Ugg boots looking more like a sorority sister than the lead anchor of a major network news market. When the cameras roll, she’ll shed her winter-wear in favor of a sharp white dress and sleek stiletto heels, which matched with her authoritative voice make this hometown girl one of the more popular anchors in the metroplex. But at this early hour, it’s all about comfort and staying awake, which explains the station’s extensive coffee offerings.

The morning shift doesn’t bother Borta — in fact, she prefers it. After 18 years on the nightly news, she was sick of missing family dinners and her teenagers’ sporting events. When CBS offered her the morning slot, she jumped on the opportunity, paying little mind to the 2 a.m. wake up call.

“For me, I have a husband and three teenage kids. I was never with them,” she says. “This is ideal for me.”

She is one of the few who seem to have no complaints about the schedule this news team is forced to keep. She gets home in the late morning after her broadcast, takes a nap, then enjoys the evening with her family and catches a couple more hours of sleep before heading to the studio from her Arlington home. Compared to the other producers and news writers huddled at their desks, Borta oozes peppiness, making it clear why she’s an on-air personality.

AM3:47

With a flurry of fresh verve, meteorologist Scott Padgett enters the studio, already dressed in a crisp suit and a deep red tie. His energy is almost startling at this early hour as he beelines for his weather forecasting station in the corner of the television studio, a series of monitors displaying real time conditions that he studies to determine the forecast.

One has to ask, in an era where every smartphone tells you the weather by the hour, are television weathermen becoming passé? Not at all, Padgett says.

“Those [weather] apps work off an algorithm,” he says, which explains why it sometimes predicts rain when you go to bed, but you wake to sunny skies. “My challenge is to interpret those algorithms so you can understand the variables.”

It’s a challenge he doesn’t take lightly. He has a pet peeve when it comes to “shock value” news that makes mountains out of meteorological molehills.

“I’m not here to scare anyone,” he says. “I just want to make sure you and your family are safe.”

His own interest in weather was born from fear. As a child growing up in Illinois, he was petrified of the robust storms that sweep across the Midwest. To help him overcome that anxiety, Padgett’s father painstakingly explained weather phenomena to him, from the classic counting the number of beats between lightning and thunder, to watching the same daily forecasts Padgett now conducts. He was hooked. That, paired with his natural stage charisma, made his career choice easy.

“You never get used to the hours,” he laughs. “At this point, my friends all know not to call me after 8 p.m.”

AM4:05

You hear Chelsey Davis before you see her. The clack of her heels reverberates brightly on the long hallways toward the studio. Her wide smile and clear charisma are a clear byproduct of her years as a cheerleader for the Arizona Cardinals.

If you want to know the status of Dallas’ notoriously gridlocked rush-hour traffic, you want Davis in your phone contacts. Traffic is her specialty and she is used to getting early morning check-ins from friends or family asking whether Highway 75 is backed up.

“Even viewers email me, and I always email back,” she laughs.

She’s dressed like Mrs. Claus this morning in cherry red with a big black belt. In addition to traffic, Davis also produces feature segments. Today’s has her presenting a shark-loving

7-year-old cancer patient a slew of surprises since he was stuck in the hospital for Christmas.

“It’s going to be the most amazing day,” she beams.

AM4:10

With its high-tech studio, you might imagine there’s a behind-the-scenes team of stylists who beautify the on-air talent before each broadcast, but Borta, Padgett and Davis share a sparse room lined with mirrors, where they handle their own hair and make-up. Borta and Davis twirl curling wands through their hair as Padgett swings by to check his already perfectly quaffed hair one last time. Then it’s time to head to the studio, where Borta positions herself behind the anchor desk to review the story list one final time, Padgett heads to his weather station and Davis scans the traffic patterns. Surrounded by a bevy of screens and teleprompters under a canopy of bright lights

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AM4:29

Producer Brenda Lawson scurries around the studio, checking in with each person and making sure they are ready to go live in a matter of moments.

“Fifteen” she yells.

“Seconds?” Borta asks, dashing to her place behind the desk.

A voice counts down, the cameramen take aim and the script starts rolling as Borta’s authoritative voice booms over the studio, welcoming the morning viewers to the day’s news.

“It all comes down to the teleprompter operator,” aptly notes CBS spokeswoman Lori Conrad. He has the challenge of staying up to speed with Borta, not moving too fast or too slow as she reads the words that scroll across the lens of the camera, so she can

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Davis and Padgett don’t rely on teleprompters but instead improvise their broadcasts using the data they’ve compiled that morning. Padgett stands before a green screen, the monitor in front of him displaying a mirrored version of the weather map viewers see at home. Both he and Davis have mastered the precision of the “broadcast dance,” in which they effortlessly move toward and away from the camera. Watching it in person, it looks somewhat strange but on screen it gives them that friendly approachability that people expect from their morning news.

This cycle will repeat for the next twoand-a-half hours. News, weather, traffic, as the team greets each new segment of viewers waking for their day.

By 11:30 a.m., they’ll be home and in bed, right about the time the rest of us are starting to consider lunch.

—Emily Charrier