Tonight is the night that Nexstar is going to launch their new cable news show that they promise will be objective and without opinion.

“News Nation” hits the air tonight on WGN America at 8 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific.

The newscast will be based out of Chicago and anchored by Joe Donlon, Marni Hughes, and Rob Nelson. Albert Ramon will be giving viewers the weather.

Nexstar is hoping this is the start of something bigger. The newscast will be 3 hours, but if all goes well, Nexstar has plans to expand.

The News Nation team has been doing a number of rehearsals as they ready for tonight’s debut. “The set looks great, the graphics look great, the newscast looks very small market and midwestern,” said one Nexstar employee that has watched the rehearsal shows.

So, will “midwestern” work against a very East coast biased news world?

That is the big question. Insiders say right now, Nexstar is just happy to be getting a big chunk of the political ad dollars being thrown around.

The company is calling this cable newscast the opposite of Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. There will not be a bunch of talking heads screaming at each other, or hosts offering up their opinion. The goal is to present the news objectively and let the viewers decide.

That is refreshing in itself.

According to one Nexstar insider, it also appears that News Nation will be getting first dibs on the breaking news shot by the Nexstar stations around the country.

A source tells FTVLive that the Nexstar stations have been told that breaking news video goes to News Nation first and is not to be shared with the cable news nets until after seen on News Nation.

Tonight, we all get to see how this comes together.

Will this really be the answer to the cable news channels that have given up on news for opinion. Or, will this be a cheaply run, small market looking newscast that is being put on the air just to rake in national ad dollars.

I for one am hoping that Nexstar does it right and hope that it succeeds.

Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC gave up on doing real news a long time ago, I really hope that News Nation gives that back to viewers.

Stay tuned….

Lastly, judging by the promo picture above, I guess that social distancing is not happening at News Nation.

Oh! And yes….there were cookies in the newsroom: