‘CNN Newsroom’ anchors move closer together: ‘Look at those vaccines work’

CNN anchors Alisyn Camerota and Victor Blackwell celebrated being back on the same set — and within six feet of each other Tuesday, June 1, 2021.

“I just wanna take a moment to say that you and I are on the same set, within six feet of each other,” Camerota said at the top of the show. “It’s a new day here,” she said, perhaps giving a nod to the morning show she left earlier this year.

“Look at those vaccines work,” added Blackwell. 

Like many multi-anchor shows, the show had been being produced with anchors in different spaces or even from home during the coronavirus pandemic, relying on split screen or boxes.

When sets are used, anchors were typically seated at least six feet apart — and often even more.

‘CNN Newsroom’ anchors Alisyn Camerota and Victor Blackwell were in studio after the Derek Chauvin verdict in March 2020, but sat farther apart. Studio 17N has a three segment anchor desk that can be used for one, two and multiple anchor and guest configurations. 

Camerota and Blackwell, who took over anchoring the “CNN Newsroom” block in April 2021, have been on set in Studio 17N previously but seated farther apart than the set was designed for.

Studio 17N, which is located in the 30 Hudson Yards complex CNN started moving into in 2019, is a working newsroom set overlooking an open workspace with a frosted color changing backlit wall with seamless video wall installed in the center.

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During many of the socially distanced shows in the space, however, the network brought in a mobile video panel to place between the anchors, presumably to help hide what was presumably a rather deserted newsroom as many WarnerMedia employees are still working at home.

The video wall in the back of the newsroom, meanwhile, has been filled with a gradient look that helped make it blend into the wall.

It’s worth noting that Alisyn Camerota and Victor Blackwell aren’t seated quite as close together as perhaps the set was designed for, as illustrated by this screenshot from when the studio debuted back in 2019.

Other notable shows have been transitioning back to sitting at normal distances and having in studio guests, including NBC’s “Today,” which made the switch May 14, 2021.