Live From Di Bona Studio! ‘Good Morning Emerson’ Grows Collaboration with WEBN
Photos by Rian Nelson ’25
Before the lights shine on Good Morning Emerson… 
Left to right: Inside the control room — Aidan Vahey ’26, News Director Ruby Brooks ’24, Madalynn Harger ’26, Dev Dokania ’25, Leah Dawson ’25, Amanda Winters ’24. 
Weather Correspondent Caroline Reese ’24, Good Morning Emerson co-host Drew Mitchell ’24, Good Morning Emerson co-host Katie Delaney ’24, enjoy a laugh while not filming. 
Camera Operator Ethan Sutton ’27 Camera puts up the set before the show 
News Director Ruby Brooks speaks with Good Morning Emerson co-hosts Drew Mitchell and Katie Delaney, right. 
Floor Director Fifi Shultz ’24 counts it down for Political Correspondent Meg Richards ’26. 
Sports Correspondent Noah Berkowitz ’26 provides an update. 
Fifi Shultz ’24, Ethan Sutton ’27, Carley Roberts ’27. 
Good Morning Emerson co-hosts Drew Mitchell ’24, left, and Katie Delaney ’24. 
Entertainment Correspondent Ella Shaffer ’26 gets ready to report while Floor Director Fifi Shultz ’24 works behind the scenes. 
Fifi Shultz ’24, Tess Caporaso ’27, Miles Katz ’26 (at the lighting board), Amanda Winters ’24, Tucker Stikeman ’25, Ella Shaffer ’26.
The studio is silent except for the countdown by Good Morning Emerson director Ruby Brooks ’24.
“Thirty… Ten…Five… Four…” Brooks mimes the final three seconds on her fingers, and the show is live.
Executive producers Amanda Winters ’24 and Madalynn Harger ’26 led the October 19 show, the first of the semester for GME, a live student produced show on the The Emerson Channel. Good Morning Emerson will continue to run live every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the semester.
“It’s good to have a team of people who know what they’re doing because you don’t have to micromanage things,” Winters said. “When everyone is able to do their job effectively, it makes the entire production run so much smoother.”
This is Winters’ fourth semester with GME, and first as an executive producer. One of her biggest hopes for GME is to once again host live performances in the studio. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, GME hosted live musical acts, arts and crafts demonstrations, and more.
“It’s going to be complicated,” she said. “You have to change an entire set in just a little break, but I think we can do it. There’s always room for improvement.”
A typical production day at GME starts at 7:30 a.m. with the studio and control room crews coming in first. Studio staff work on creating the set, adjusting lighting, audio equipment, and cameras. In the control room, the crew works to make sure all of the video and graphics are programmed to the right segment of the show.
“We already have the graphics made, so I just go in and put in all of the information for them,” said Leah Dawson ’25, who’s worked on GME for five semesters. “There’s everyone’s names, titles, and pictures.”
This semester’s collaboration between GME and WEBN-TV is larger than ever before. The latter is a student-run news broadcast show housed in the Journalism Production Center. For the news segment of the show, GME throws to WEBN’s studio and its team of four students, who do the entire news segment.
“The interconnection of the different studios is a unique part of the show,” said Aidan Vahey ’26, technical director for GME. “The collab has been really cool, throwing it back and forth between the two studios.”
Harger has been working with GME since her first semester at Emerson.
“Every time I work on the show, I fall in love with it,” Harger, the executive producer, said. “The crew and cast are always so amazing, and something about waking up early brings everyone together. Watching all of my planning come together has been so rewarding.“
The WEBN-TV segment featured Meghan O’Brien ’24 reporting on the Israel-Hamas war and the Head of the Charles Regatta here in Boston. After switching back to the GME anchors, the show featured political, sports and weather correspondents.
“I’m very, very proud of the team,” director Brooks said. “It’s impressive that it’s all student-run. We’re great this week, we’re going to be even better next week, and we’re going to keep improving, which is what it’s all about.”
GME is co-hosted by Katie Delaney ’24 and Drew Mitchell ’24. After reporting in pre-recorded shows with WEBN-TV, Delaney said there is a greater chance for mistakes to happen during a live show.
“When you’re live, you really just have to roll with the punches,” Delaney said. “You have to learn how to seamlessly correct yourself, and you have to be really on top of the rundown. You have to be really sure of the order of things, how to pronounce names, and where you need to be looking.”
Delaney started as a correspondent for GME in Fall 2022 and tried hosting to practice off-the-cuff banter.
“It’s definitely tricky to keep things entertaining while also timing everything correctly,” Delaney said, “but it’s been so rewarding. I think overall, Good Morning Emerson is such a well-done show. Everyone is so great at their jobs, and it really comes together into a stunning finished piece twice a week.”
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