Pictures from the Road

Dear Viewers,

Monday night we are on the road again, this time the show will be live from Chicago. Last Thursday and Friday we were in New York city. The show has been moving so much from its home base of Washington, D.C. lately that I am worried people will begin to think I am stalking Sean Hannity on his book tour!

I like going to New York from time to time since most of the staff on the show work from our New York bureau.  With phones and e-mail, it is not necessary that we all be in the same city. When I signed on with Fox two plus years ago, I wanted to stay in Washington and the then existing 10 p.m. staff, of course, wanted to stay in New York City. So, we made it work... and work, it has. We remain No. 1 in the 10 p.m. cable news slot. The thanks goes not just to our great staff, but to the many viewers who have supported us since we launched.

Since I promised behind the scenes, here are some pictures from the trip to New York City:

• Click here for my photo essay

Photo No. 1: This is a photo of Mina (booker/producer) who has been with the show since day one. By the way, she is the one who books Dr. Henry Kissinger all the time. The picture was taken in the “On The Record” pod in the newsroom.

Photo No. 2: This is a picture Cara who may have the roughest job in television. She is a line producer. That means she has deal with all the problems in our live news show. By problems I mean the surprises: breaking news, audio problems, guests being late, etc. The problems are never predictable and every cable news program on every network has them and it is the line producer who must handle them which includes solving them fast! To be a great line producer -- and Cara is -- you have to be very steady under pressure.

Photo No. 3: One of the great things about being in TV is that you get to meet so many interesting people in the makeup room. On Thursday night, former New York Mayor Giuliani was on “Hannity & Colmes,” so I was able to make a little girl's dream come true. The little girl in the picture is the makeup artist's daughter, who happened to be at work with her mother that night. Since she is a New Yorker, she was very excited to meet the mayor. I offered to take her picture and the mayor was a very good sport!

Photo No. 4 shows the makeup artist with her daughter and the mayor.

Photo No. 5 is a picture of the set that Fox New York rushed to create for the show. As you may know from a prior blog, the studio was just redone and because our show is not a regular New York show, a plan had not been made for when I am in New York. No one realized that until right before I got to New York and plans were underway to air from New York. This was the "rush job" and I thought quite magnificent. It looked to me like much thought and hard work had gone into it. This is simply a side of the set.

Photo No. 6 is Jessica the New York stage manager sitting in my anchor chair. She is sitting there to check out the lighting, audio, etc. before I arrive to make sure that everything works. This is routine for all shows -- part of the pre-show preparation. Jessica is also the one who gives me time cues in the studio during the show. She is responsible for the studio and she runs a very "tight ship." The first week I was on the air at Fox, both my pager and cell phone went off while Jessica was in charge of the studio (this had never happened before and wouldn't you know it would happen twice with the same studio manager so that I could not claim ignorance.)  Needless to say, every time I am in her studio now she specifically asks me if I have turned all my devices off. Of course, after that mistake, I am very careful not to do it -- especially under her watch.

Photo No. 7 is Elaine Lafferty, editor-in-chief of Ms Magazine. She was on Thursday's show talking about the story "shock porn" that is in the new edition of Ms Magazine. I have this picture in for two reasons: One, so that you can see another part of our set that you probably could not see on camera. And two, to tease her that her picture is in my blog. I am not sure why the TV monitor to her left as that picture in it -- probably a commercial on our air.

Photo No. 8 is really a staged picture. After the show I asked Dr. Baden to sit in the make up chair so that I could take his picture for the blog. He obliged.

Photo No. 9 is a random picture I found on my camera recently taken in the D.C. makeup room. It is Bernie Grimm getting ready for the show.

Greta

Please write to Greta at ontherecord@foxnews.com!

Watch On the Record with Greta Van Susteren weeknights at 10 p.m. ET