She puts the words on your TV screen

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🌍 Jobs spotlight: CNN electronic graphics operator

Cathy Darden, senior electronic graphics operator

Cathy Darden, a senior electronic graphics operator, sits at her workstation inside the CNN Center control room in Atlanta. (Photo credit: Ty Youstin/CNN)

When you watch a live CNN broadcast, you've probably noticed all of the information written across your TV screen or mobile device. These electronic graphics help provide context to the video and interviews that you're watching, and there's a whole team of electronic graphics operators, or EGOs, who are responsible for making sure the words on your TV screen are accurate and up to date.

It's a fast-paced job, explained senior EGO Cathy Darden.

"There are times when something is about to happen soon and we have a banner (on the broadcast) that says, 'Soon: President Biden to speak' and then all of a sudden he's out, he's speaking," Darden said. "So I'll quickly put up a 'Breaking News' tab until the banner is updated."

Darden comes in an hour before her first show to review all the graphics and make sure everything is loading correctly. She works on four shows each day and, during each show, she is in the control room along with the director, producer and the rest of the show team.

"To do this job, you have to be a person that likes to multitask and doesn't like to be bored — because this isn't a boring job," she said.

Darden is part of CNN's Technical Operations Department, which supports all control rooms and studios across the news networks.

As part of a series spotlighting the behind-the-scenes jobs across CNN, we recently caught up with Darden to learn more about what goes into creating the graphics for a live broadcast. Below is a portion of our conversation, edited for length and clarity:

Tell us about a day in the life of an electronic graphics operator

Well, for starters, an electronic graphics operator is the very last person to see the information on the screen before the viewers see it at home. It is our job to make sure that all the graphics are grammatically correct. We have to be up to date on current events so that if something is wrong, we can catch it. (We don't catch that many mistakes). We look for misspellings, and we have to make sure that the banner that's on air is actually relevant to what the anchors are speaking about.

So we have to stay hyper-focused at all times to make sure everything is cohesive. We can have as many as five guests on screen in boxes, and we have to make sure everyone has the correct locator font. That takes a lot of navigating at the same time.

And that's just in the control room during the live broadcast. A lot of our work happens outside of the control room. We have to build relationships with our editorial partners to make sure that all the graphics play out the way they're supposed to on air. It's not just sitting in the control room. Our relationships extend way beyond that.

What part of the TV screen do you control?

What I control on the screen are the banners, the red tab, the locator and clock, maps — when you're watching sports, any of the graphics that have scores — we're generating all of those things during a newscast.

The red CNN live bug, the ticker that rolls at the bottom of the screen — that's coming through Master Control, a separate team.

Identifiers for all the visual graphics that appear on live CNN TV

What's your role in a breaking news situation?

There have been instances where we will have breaking news about to happen, and the executive producer will come in the control room and say to everyone, "This is what's going to happen, and Cathy, when this happens, put that banner up and stick to only that until I tell you to change it." Sometimes they'll give me a chunk of banners and they'll say, "Cathy, just rotate between those 15 banners." But I still need to pay close attention to what the guest is saying to make sure within those 15 banners, one of those banners is supporting what he's talking about.

When the US first dropped bombs on Baghdad in 2003, I was at CNN International in the control room at the time and we could see the rockets just landing on the villages in Baghdad. The control room was filled with people, and I'm typing and my hands are trembling because I'm so nervous and the tears are dropping down my face because I know people are dying. I was in the chair when Prince passed away. It's an emotional position as well, because we're so engaged.

What's something that people are surprised to learn about what you do?

A lot of growth has come with being in this position, and I appreciate and respect the industry and how it operates. A lot of times I'm getting information that the world does not know yet, and you cannot call home and tell your mom, your husband, your sister. It's an unspoken rule. Respect the news. They get it when they get it. We get it because we're working and that's our job.

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- Written and edited by Kyle Almond, Tricia Escobedo and Jessica Sooknanan