Back on November 18th, 2025, Fallston High School’s senior leadership class took a trip to Baltimore to receive a tour of WBFF Fox45 and watch a live news broadcast. Our tour guide for the trip was Assistant News Director Andrea Verosko, and we watched many other journalists live in action.
The day started with a tour of the facility. It was amazing to see the different workspaces for the journalists, print and broadcast. There was one room that we saw for print journalists where they all used to work. However, after Covid, the staff was split into two different rooms.
There were almost no journalists actually at their desks, though, as they were all out in the field, either on their own gathering information or with a team filming for future broadcasts.
After the tour, we went to the live broadcast room, one of the coolest places we saw. One spacious room surrounded with screens having three moving cameras is where everything is filmed.
This was shocking to see. Prior to this trip, I thought that there were large teams in these rooms. However, during the broadcast we watched, there were only two people in the room: the reporter, Ashley Cusicanqui, and someone there to help behind the scenes.
Once the live show started, I gained a whole new appreciation for live action news anchors. Cusicanqui was making all her cues, reading the teleprompter, hearing input from the control room, and staying poised all at the same time.
In our time talking to her, she stressed one thing: never worry about mistakes. Mistakes are completely normal and natural, and she said that if you happen to misspeak or mess up, just keep going. If you do not harp on the mistake, no one will even notice.
After watching part of the live show, we then got to see the room with sets for other live news shows. Following this, we were shown the control room.
The control room is where all of the extra people I thought there would be were. Here is where the show is actually made to be ready to air. They put all of the information on the screens and give the reporter the information needed.
Following our tour and live show, we sat down in the meeting room and had an excellent Q&A with Verosko that was immensely helpful for future career planning. She answered everything from questions about resumes to how to become a journalist.
Our experience and trip to Fox45 was one-of-a-kind and a great learning experience as graduating seniors. We are all very thankful for this opportunity!
