This is not a test.

“We tell our students from day one this is not a drill; everything you do goes out to the community,” said Allen May, general broadcast manager of the Northern Television Center.

NTC News Tonight is a program run by students enrolled in “Directing and Producing Television News.” It is cross-listed under both journalism and communication studies. Students must be a journalism major or minor to go through the broadcast program. There is a series of six courses that are associated with the program.

“This is internally a student operation,” May said. “What we like to get across is that every newscast we do is by the students. We like to take pride that it was all the students involved that made this happen. NTC has a storied history of success, and I have had the pleasure to work with some of them.”

NTC News Tonight’s 15-minute show can be seen off-campus on DeKalb’s government access Channel 14 and on campus on Channel 20 at 6 and 10 p.m. The first four minutes of the show air on CNN Headline News on Channel 12 on campus and Channel 56 off-campus at 5:54, 7:54 and 9:54 p.m.

“Robert Miller [NIU associate professor of communication] was able to work out a relationship with CNN to get a four-minute drop-in,” May said.

“We have a four-anchor set with two regular anchors, one weather and one sports,” said Alex Wiertelak, news and production director at NTC. Wiertelak has been with NTC for four years and has seen great change in the station.

The broadcast journalism program has been at NIU for more than 30 years and May has been there for five of those years.

About four years ago, NTC was a building that hadn’t been painted and it had one computer terminal. There was not a single computer with an Internet connection.

“In four years, the program has made a fairly dramatic transformation,” May said.

“Even though it is very stressful, I love the environment,” said Ali McGinnis, a senior journalism and Spanish major who produces NTC News Tonight on Mondays.

May said he is very proud of the students who go through the broadcast program.

Nathan Mihelich, who graduated in 2001 with a degree in communication studies and journalism, got a job as a photo editor in Mississippi and within two years was sent to Iraq as a military reporter.

Hillary Burgess, a communication studies major, graduated in Dec. 2003 and is a video editor in Hawaii at CBS affiliate KGMB 9.

“The NIU classes really did prepare me for the real world,” Burgess said. “I’m so happy I came over [to NTC]; I thought it was going to be very scary, but it wasn’t.”

NIU has had an increase in the number of students coming for journalism classes. Burgess came back to visit NTC and left May with contact information for students who might be interested in jobs.

“We are able to produce students who are ahead of the curve,” May said. “These students learn how to be good really fast. One thing that is really challenging about this is that deadlines are really aggressive. Deadlines are every minute and the clock is always ticking.”

“There is nothing cooler than sitting in the control room watching the show be directed and produced by the students,” May said. “There is an energy that is hard to explain.”