Geneva's John Trierweiler: My Audition for CBS-2 Traffic Guy

• Editor's note: Last month CBS 2 launched an area-wide contest for one resident to become the station's new morning traffic reporter.  Sixty-nine semi-finalists were selected from more than 650 audition videos and one of them is John Trierweiler from Geneva. The 69 semi-finalists were invited to CBS 2 Saturday, April 16, for an on-camera audition alongside news anchors Steve Bartelstein and Susan Carlson and meteorologist Megan Glaros. Here's John's first-person recap of his experience in the Traffic Tryouts! For more information about the contest, check out the CBS-2 website here.

Meeting with the morning show's executive producer and Channel 2’s president and general manger was an exciting start to my Saturday afternoon audition to be the next traffic anchor on the CBS-2 morning news.

But it was only the beginning of the whirlwind audition process.

I was handed a script of three incidents—a fire, a rollover accident on the Eisenhower and a water-main break—and I had about five minutes to read it over and then another five to practice with the show's traffic producer.

Then it was off to the set for the audition.

Morning show anchors Susan Carlson, Steve Bartelstein and meteorologist Megan Glaros read some news and then tossed to me for the traffic report—just as it would go down on any weekday morning. After some friendly banter, I gave the traffic update with only 10 seconds per incident and then back to the news desk for a little chit-chat.

All in all, it was a great audition and a great afternoon. The people at CBS were friendly, helpful, and so excited to have me and all the other applicants’ audition for their morning show.

The morning team will now pick the top 10 applicants to advance to the final round. If I make the cut, I’ll be called in to do the traffic one morning on the actual CBS-2 morning news.

Keep your fingers crossed, and I'll keep you posted on what happens next.