“Well this just in: it’s cold,” said University President Todd Diacon as the cameras roll on the Thursday night newscast. 

Today, as a part of a series of visiting the different colleges at Kent State to experience what the students are doing, President Diacon came into Franklin Hall to be a part of the Thursday night newscast. He announced the seven-day forecast and did a quick Q&A after his TV2 debut. 

Before the show started, President Diacon came in early to get a tour of the newsroom, seeing the different jobs everyone does before the newscast. TV2 General Manager Mitch Meyers explained how everything is shot live and his jaw dropped. 

One of the rules of being on air is to not swear, but President Diacon reassured everyone by saying, “I curse in Portuguese.”

As the time got closer to going live, President Diacon and crew went down to the studio to get a rundown of everything and learn how to do the weather.

A clicker was handed to him, explaining that it would help him go through the slides showing the weather, and then at the end he said he would “drop the clicker — boom.” 

The countdown started and everyone was ushered into the control room as the newscast started.

Throughout the show, President Diacon pressed different buttons to turn on microphones, turn on graphics and get the show together. Then, after the second set of commercials, it was time for the weather. 

“Weather made me nervous,” President Diacon said, after cracking jokes about the dreary Ohio weather throughout the seven-day forecast. 

As the first part of the series, TV2’s Thursday newscast made a good impression. 

“I was really impressed with the professionalism of the students,” President Diacon said.  

Sara Crawford is an assigning editor. Contact her at [email protected].