Pros
1. Working in a breaking news environment can be exciting, although you're not very involved with the action. 2. Having a CNN doctor at the office 3. Great healthcare plan 3. 100% 401k match 4. Various discounts with car companies, phone companies, etc 5. The diner is being renovated and will be amazing 6. Your friends will think its cool you work at CNN, but trust me, its not...
Cons
1. Pay - you'd make more money waiting tables. No seriously... 2. Schedule - you work almost every holiday (I'm talking Christmas, Thanksgiving, and this isn't because you're low on the totem pole, its like this for everyone on the production side), you WILL work overnights, you WILL work weekends, you WILL work 5am shifts, you WILL lose any semblance of social life you had. 3. Management - pretty much nonexistent. Don't ever plan on getting valuable feedback on your progress or having someone go to bat for you. I've had some terrible managers before but the incompetence of mgmt for this dept is beyond belief. 4. No promotion track - mgmt is terrible so like I said, you're on your own. They'll promise you a 6 month/year promotion track but in reality you're looking at 2-4+ years before sniffing a promotion. Doesn't matter if you work your tail off. 5. No training - the job is super easy and you're not doing anything sexy at all, so your delusions of grandeur will be rocked when you realize you're never going to learn anything unless you go out of your way to teach yourself. 6. Culture - everyone is pretty much miserable from top to bottom. Its a common joke that you will have no social life and no money. In fact people wear it like a badge of honor, but personally I prefer happiness over sulking day in and day out with my coworkers. 7. Respect - yes, you're bottom of the barrel, but you'd have a hard time finding an intro level job somewhere else that treats you this badly. Be prepared to have producers yelling "PROMPTER!!!" at you even when you've worked on their show for 2 years. CONCLUSION - you will advance 100x faster and learn 100x more at a local station where you are valued as a person and not another number. There are incredible people and incredible jobs at CNN/Turner, but the News Assistant job will set you back years in career development and financial stability. This job is a glorified internship that's full time and doesn't just last a summer, it lasts as long as you wait until realizing you should leave. Nearly every NA I started with is gone and much happier because of it.
