‘The Source’ moves to newsroom set, receives graphics overhaul

CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlin Collins” debuted a new look and new home May 27, 2025. 

‘The Source’ debuts with oddball look

The broadcast, which debuted in 2023, was given a complete makeover, with a new logo, graphics package and move to the network’s Washington, D.C., newsroom.

As part of the move, the show dropped its red, white and silver design in favor of a more sophisticated steely blue and gold palette. The geometric sans serif is gone from the show’s wordmark, replaced with Kuunari, which is also used as the primary headline font for the “CNN NewsCentral” video wall graphics.

The logo now also features four bars to help fill in the negative space left to the right of “The” and left of “with” and Collins’ name on the two lines below.

Animated sequences, including the new show open, use a mix of blurred dots and line segments along with laser lines, with some of these elements, including the show title card, using a more orange shade in key parts, including the logo bars.

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At the top of the show, Collins is shown taking a quick walk down a walkway in the newsroom, which features a quasi-industrial look and moody lighting.

The show starts with a one-shot on Collins positioned strategically to one side of a tall iteration of the show’s logo positioned somewhere in the workspace behind the anchor desk.

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The space has also been decked out with graphics that mirror the linear and dashed elements found in the open. 

A sidebar-style OTS enters the shot camera left that, when combined with that branding element in the newsroom, frames out Collins neatly.

Collins sits on the short side of an L-shaped modular anchor desk, with in-studio guests seated along the other side. 

In the background, the video of the newsroom is dissected by a vertical LED video panel designed to look like it’s part of one of the building’s structural columns. This is used for a topical graphic that appears in wide shots of Collins and her guests.

The show also uses a slightly non-traditional wide shot that shows everyone at the desk along with four cameras, all of which appear to be unmanned PTZ units. 

CNN execs are reportedly interested in boosting the show’s ratings and are eager to portray Collins, who is also the network’s chief White House correspondent, as an intrepid reporter, according to a Variety report.

Having Collins anchor from an enclosed video wall-heavy studio apparently didn’t align with that goal, which triggered the move to the newsroom set.

That space, along with the graphics updates, gives the show a decidedly different feel, namely that it feels more sophisticated than what the brighter reds and blues lent the program. 

The newsroom’s darker lighting and sort of “clean industrial” feel also give the program a slightly more gritty feel.

All that said, despite being produced from the newsroom, the background still feels oddly devoid of many people in the background. Though it was difficult to tell definitively, it appeared the space may have only had a small handful of workers at desks. 

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Interestingly, however, Collins told Variety that the newsroom is “not a very chill place” and that there is “always” something going on there, which would seemingly contradict the calmer, almost deserted space. 

This certainly doesn’t lend itself to portraying the image of a busy newsroom, though it’s not surprising given the show’s 9 p.m. timeslot. It’s also possible that a busier, more frenetic newsroom background wasn’t really what CNN was going for with the overhaul.

On May 27’s show, much of the background “action” came from the rows of flickering television panels near the ceiling or desktop monitors. 

The new “Source” opted out of using the bureau’s other traditional studios, which are frequently seen on-air for D.C.-based programming, including leveraging the video walls for floating camera and video on video shots seen on “CNN NewsCentral” and “The Situation Room.”

When “NewsCentral” launched, CNN noted that it was borrowing from its landmark event coverage style to create the show’s look and feel, such as election coverage from Studio A/B in Washington, that frequently kick off with wide, sweeping views of the space produced in multiple areas of the set as well as showcasing a variety of video wall graphics.

The new space also lacks prominent elements that emphasize its origin, such as imagery of famous D.C. landmarks. Again, however, this could have been a strategic decision by the show’s producers.

Later in the week of May 24, Collins anchored from New York City, using Studio 19Z in the network’s Hudson Yards building. This space is also a more traditional enclosed studio.

CNN’s New York facilities did, at least at one time, include Studio 17N, a working newsroom set that could have been used to replicate, to at least some degree, the D.C. newsroom setup, but the space stopped being used a a regular home for programming several years ago and it is not entirely clear what happened to it.

Studio 17N contains, like many of the other NYC studios, multiple seamless video wall arrays, including some that can be moved, but the show opted to largely avoid its previously look of attempting to simulate structural elements on the LED, which often ended up with oddly-scaled textures and exaggerated bevel effects that didn’t end up playing well on camera.

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Since the D.C. newsroom view lacks any significant video walls, however, that doesn’t appear to be part of the new look and the NYC graphics largely centered on the the horizontal textures, a view of the White House (despite the show not being in Washington) and simulated virtual views that aren’t necessarily meant to look like a real space.