cnn

Many people think of Ted Turner as the rich guy with a lot of money. But he also is a guy with inspiration and great ideas. One of them is CNN, the first global media in the transforming world, that changed forever the way the news is reported. For the Eastern European journalists like myself who grew up in the former communist block and witnessed the propaganda machine of the state-controlled media, CNN was the first touch with the free world. In short, Ted Turner’s CNN had an eye-opening effect on my  professional development as a reporter, storyteller and filmmaker. This paper will point out how CNN started as a practical and target-oriented channel, the ways it addressed the global audience, and CNN’s most significant achievements.  In addition, some criticisms against CNN will be examined.
Cable News Network (CNN) the first all news program that provided 24 hours news coverage was launched on June 1st, 1980. It was basically a cable network that was mainly distributed in the hotel chains and was oriented toward the American businessmen travelling in the USA and abroad. An audience that later proved to be the engine of the world globalization.  CNN broadcasted information about weather forecasts, major catastrophes, nature documentaries, economic or politic, lifestyle updates, sport events – all this information was transmitted live!
“We won’t be signing off until the world ends. We’ll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event,” the founder Ted Turner said in the beginning of the first broadcast. Live reporting became CNN’s trade mark over decades.
Regarding how CNN addressed its global audience in the early days is a masterpiece of telecommunication innovation. Back at that time, one of the main priorities of the new channel was the global viewers and it targeted them in a very straight way. In 80s and 90s most broadcasters rarely would run an international story.  News from foreign countries had to “travel” for hours and even days.  Producing your own foreign news piece cost much effort and a lot of money. Even if a broadcaster had correspondents abroad, they mainly reported on the phone.
In brilliant innovative contrast, as an Atlanta based television network, CNN took every advantage that the new technology offered to provide live images from wherever the event occurred. Soon after it was launched a new technology named “unilateral” was invented.  A satelite connection was used to transmit live images. The channel embraced it to create international net of bureaus. Within several years the media developed a chain of 20 bureaus in the USA and 42 abroad. Nowadays the number of the international stations has been cut to 33 due to the financial crisis but still the television has newsrooms in four continents. Filing a story from Middle East, Europe or Asia has become a simple routine.
Continuing with how the global audience was engaged, in 1987 Ted Turner went even further and created the platform “World Report”. He was impressed by a UN sponsored research. It showed that people around the globe believed the international news is reported from the American point of view. He decided to give the foreign local broadcasters an opportunity to submit their own stories to this platform. They also were able to chose to air for free whatever story they like from it. CNN itself broadcasted most of these news pieces. Many people at that time critisized Turner for giving the communist and other totalitarian regimes a platform for propaganda.  Indeed they were correct however, Turner knew what he was doing.  Unlike other western media such as Voice of America or Radio Free Europe that were considered hostile and therefore forbidden in the former Soviet block, CNN was considered friendly and was granted permission to transmit beyond the Iron Curtain. When the Berlin wall collapsed, the platform “World Report” became the richest source of visual information about the dramatic events in East Europe.
The channel incorporates every opportunity that would engage even more its global audience. iReport is another example in this direction. This initiative allowed people from all corners of the world to contribute pictures and video of breaking news stories. The program was launched in 2006 to benefit from the newsgathering capabilities of citizens at the scene of notable events. As of January 2012, there were more than a million registered iReport members. The platform was one of the first examples of so called “citizen journalism”.
Due to its efficient policy today the television international reach includes more than 200 million households and hotel rooms in over 212 countries and territories.
The Atlanta based channel has changed the path of the media in many ways. One of its main achievements is the unique way of  live coverage of the important events and crisis. On January 16, 1991 CNN made history with the first time ever live coverage of war operations. The live reports by Peter Arnett, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman from the Al-Rashid Hotel in Bagdad during the initial hours of the Coalition bombing campaign that started the Gulf War I were ran by televisions around the world and were viewed by billions of people. Since then the channel has invested greatly in professional journalists and advanced equipment in order to create this style of live coverage as it is today. As a result, whenever a global event or crisis occurs, most of the people in the world turn on CNN.
Another main achievement of  the network is the invention of the so-called foccuss writing – a specific technique of reporting that immiately catches the audience attention. As described in the journalism books, it is consisted of three parts – what the news is, what the impact of the news will be and how it will be covered.  Due to its direct, vivid and modern characteristics within several years the focuss writing totally replaced the old clumpsy pathern of so called “reverse pyramid”. The “reverse pyramid” was wery fashonable in late 20 century and the reporters were urged to give information about its 5Ws and 1H – what, when, where, who, why and how.
Last but not least, CNN was the first media organization ever to incorporate local journalists in its structure. This strategy later was adapted by other news giants such as Al Jazeera and Russia Today. Using local reporters has some important advantages. They are already on the spot and no time is lost for obtaining visa and traveling.  They know the language  and there is no need for translators. Last, they have better sources because local people know and trust them. One very successful example is Frederik Pleitgen, the CNN’s  German correspondent, later he covered the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris and now he is chief international correspondent  in the CNN’s London bureau .
Among its achievements the television had had some controvercies as well. One of them is  the republican/liberal bias during the presidential campaigns. A study at Harward University showed that in 2008 the network provided 63% negative coverage of the Republican candidate John McCain while the negative coverage of his Democtaric rival Barack Obama was 8%.
CNN’s coverage of the Middle East conflict is another point of criticism, sometimes being Pro Izraeli and sometimes being Pro Muslims. During the 2014 Gaza conflict, hundreds of people came to the Time Warner Center in New York to protest against the anti-Israel media bias. The protesters insisted that the channel  ignored the Israeli side of the conflict and reported deceitful stories that favored the Palestinian side.
The network has also been critisized for several cases of censorship. One of them is the case with the prominent British journalist Piers Morgan. On March 28th 2014 he was fired and his show Piers Morgan Live was canceled due to Morgan’s very outstanding anti-gun opinion.
As a journalist but also as a citizen I deeply believe that democracy needs unprejudiced, balanced and free reporting. I showed above that CNN might not be perfect. For me still it is a synonym of high professional standards, innovative media style and crafted news reporting.
Although there have been some issues with the quality of journalism in CNN, overall the channel undoughtfully stands among the top 10 leading media organizations in the world.  In the last few decades the CNN managed to stay at the crest of the wave despite the revolutionary changes the technology brought to the news industry. Both its development model and journalistic approach have already been studied and tought in the most prestigious universities as an example of exellence.