CNN came to Cagney's Restaurant in Winston-Salem yesterday morning.
A film crew visited the restaurant for a segment that will be broadcast at 11 a.m. Sunday on State of the Union With John King. King, the host of the program, spoke with customers about the state of the economy and how it was affecting their lives.
While the crew set up two cameras and lighting equipment, producer Laura Bernardini went around to customers to see who would be interested in talking.
Some customers didn't want to appear on national television, including a group of retired AT&T employees who gather at the restaurant every Friday morning. They sat at a corner booth watching. They declined to give their names, but said that they were politically conservative and consider CNN too liberal for their tastes.
"This is a Fox News corner," one of them said.
Bernardini rounded up three people who agreed to sit with King and discuss the economy: Nancy Rivers, a respiratory therapist at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center; and Jennifer Kline and Alan Bentley, who both work for State Farm Insurance.
"I'm not reluctant to share my opinions in private, so I'm not reluctant to share them in public," Bentley said.
The segment is part of a weekly feature on the show, in which King talks with people in communities around the nation. Previous segments have been shot in Illinois, Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, Vermont and Ohio. Winston-Salem was chosen, King said, because of the diversity of the economy.
He is careful not to prearrange interview subjects for the round-table discussions. "You ask around town, what's a good diner?" King said. "We don't want a planned conversation."
The show contacted the owners of Cagney's on Wednesday night to get permission. CNN didn't pay the restaurant, said George Llanaj, the owner of Cagney's. And since the filming would take only one corner, he decided that it wouldn't be disruptive.
"We are glad they came here," Llanaj said. "It was OK for us."
Just before the taping, a waitress dropped off plates of food. For King, it was his breakfast: scrambled eggs and hash browns. For the others, who had already eaten, they were props to keep the table from seeming empty. But they were encouraged to dig in if they wanted more to eat.
The taping lasted about 15 minutes, during which they discussed such topics as unemployment, the role of the government in economic matters and health-care reform. Some other patrons watched curiously during the taping, but most ignored the film crew.
Afterward, Bentley said he felt that the segment had gone smoothly. "It just felt like sitting around a table, talking," he said.
The segment will also include interviews King shot on Thursday with Mayor Allen Joines and Damian Birkel, the founder and executive director of Professionals in Transition, a nonprofit job-assistance organization.
King and Birkel discussed Professionals in Transition and Forsyth Technical Community College's employability labs, which provide assistance with career exploration, resume writing, interviewing skills and more.
"He wanted to experience firsthand what the true unemployment situation is like," Birkel said.
King attended a meeting of the Professionals in Transition support group Thursday night.
"There were about 40 people in the room," he said.
"I got to see the depth of the struggle in the economy. This is everywhere."
King's show is based in Washington, but he travels about 21/2 days a week for segments filmed around the country.
"My favorite part of the program is when we get out and talk to people," King said. "It's good to keep in touch with everyday people. You live in Spain long enough, you start to speak Spanish. You live in Washington long enough, you start to speak Washington."
■ Tim Clodfelter can be reached at 727-7371 or at tclodfelter@wsjournal.com.
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