The lights shine brightly, the director gives the cue, the theme music swells to a climax, and Jonathan Mann tells the camera, "Good afternoon from the CNN Center; our top stories today...." It's a line he repeats every weekday as a news anchor at CNN International. Watching at home in Beijing or Barcelona, viewers glimpse people rushing around behind him.?But Mann's calm delivery masks the organized chaos he takes part in to create a polished newscast.

Mann anchors from a desk literally in the back of the newsroom. All around him, producers negotiate with the assignment desk to book satellite live shots.燱riters struggle to keep up-to-date with the constant flow of updated news from CNN's reporters and wire services.燙opy editors pore over the writers' finished scripts and shout questions across the room.燭he intercom blares with details on incoming satellite news feeds. Young entry-level employees gather scripts from the laser printer and run to distribute them.燤ann spends most of his day at a desk like all the others in the newsroom, studying up on the news and writing his scripts.