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For other uses, see CNN (disambiguation).
Cable News Network
TypeCable television network
BrandingCNN
AvailabilityUnited States United States, worldwide (via CNN International), Canada, online (via CNN Pipeline), radio (news reports on the half hour)
HeadquartersUnited States Atlanta, Georgia, United States country = United States United States, Canada Canada
OwnerTurner Broadcasting (Time Warner)
Key people
Reese Schonfeld
Jim Walton (Pres., CNN Worldwide)
Jonathan Klein (Pres., CNN/US)
Launch date
June 1, 1980
Official website
www.cnn.com

The Cable News Network, commonly known as CNN, is a major cable television network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner.[1][2] It is a division of the Turner Broadcasting System, owned by Time Warner. CNN introduced the idea of 24-hour television news coverage, and celebrated its 25th anniversary on June 1, 2005.

In terms of cumulative (Cume) Nielsen ratings or "unique viewers", CNN rates as America's #1 cable news network [3]. However, CNN trails Fox News Channel in terms of average viewership. [4][5][6] CNN broadcasts primarily from its headquarters at the CNN Center in Atlanta, Time Warner Center in New York City, and studios in Washington, DC. As of December 2004, it is available in 88.2 million U.S. households and more than 890,000 American hotel rooms. The U.S version of CNN is also shown in Canada. Globally, the network airs through CNN International and has combined branded networks and services that are available to more than 1.5 billion people in over 212 countries and territories. CNN has come under criticism by liberals claiming it has a conservative bias, and by conservatives claiming it has a liberal bias.

History

File:CNN911scrn.jpg
CNN's coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks
File:IraqWarCoverage-CNN.jpg
CNN's Iraq war coverage

Since its launch on June 1 1980, CNN has expanded its reach to a number of cable and satellite television networks, several web sites, specialized closed-circuit networks (such as CNN Airport Network), and two radio networks. The network has 42 bureaus, more than 900 affiliated local stations, and several regional and foreign-language networks around the world. The network's success made a bona-fide mogul of founder Ted Turner and set the stage for the Time Warner conglomerate's eventual acquisition of Turner Broadcasting.

Despite its domestic standing, CNN remains a distant second in international news coverage, reaching just over half of the audience of the older BBC News. Unlike BBC's network of reporters and bureaus, CNN International makes extensive use of affiliated reporters that are local to, and often directly affected by, the events they are reporting. The effect is a more immediate, less detached style of on-the-ground coverage. This has done little to stem criticism, largely from Middle Eastern nations, that CNN International reports news from a pro-American perspective. This is a marked contrast to domestic criticisms that often portray CNN as having a "liberal" or "anti-American" bias.

A companion network, Headline News (originally called CNN2) was launched in 1982 and featured a continuous 24-hour cycle of 30-minute news broadcasts. Headline News broke from its original format in 2006 with the addition of Headline Prime. Current programs feature confrontational personalities like radio talk-show host Glenn Beck and former Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor Nancy Grace.

The Gulf War

The first Persian Gulf War in 1990 was a watershed event for CNN that catapulted the network past the "big three" American networks for the first time in its history, largely due to an unprecedented, historical scoop: CNN was the only news outlet with the ability to communicate outside Iraq during the initial hours of the American bombing campaign. Clandestine live reports from the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad by reporters Bernard Shaw, John Holliman, and Peter Arnett are some of the most nail-biting, suspenseful reports in television news history.

Much of the vivid suspense results, ironically, from the reporters' inability to offer a video feed, which forced CNN to present their degraded, telephone-quality audio over live green-tinted night-vision shots of a Baghdad sky streaked with tracers and explosions. These images simultaneously evoked both Edward R. Murrow's radio reports of the London Blitzkrieg during World War II and the Cold War video game Missile Command, resulting in some of the most indelible journalistic images of the late 20th Century. Their impact was widespread and profound.

The Gulf War experience brought CNN some much sought-after legitimacy and made household names of previously obscure (and infamously low-paid) reporters. Many of these reporters now comprise CNN's "old guard." Bernard Shaw became CNN's chief anchor until his retirement in 2001. Others include then-White House correspondent Wolf Blitzer (now host of The Situation Room and Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer) and international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Amanpour's presence in Iraq was caricatured by actress Nora Dunn as the ruthless reporter "Adriana Cruz" in the film Three Kings (1999, dir: David O. Russell). Time Warner later produced a television movie, Live from Baghdad, about the network's coverage of the first Gulf War, which aired on CNN's sister network, TNT.

The CNN Effect

Coverage of the first Gulf War and other crises of the early 1990s (particularly the infamous "Black Hawk Down" Battle of Mogadishu) led officials at the Pentagon to coin the term "the CNN effect" to describe the perceived impact of real time, 24-hour news coverage on the decision-making processes of the American government.

9/11

On September 11 2001, CNN was the first network to break news of the September 11 attacks. Anchor Carol Lin was on the air to deliver the first public report of the event. Sean Murtagh, CNN vice-president for finance & administration, was the first network employee on the air in New York. Archives of CNN's website on 9/11 and subsequent days are available at [1].

Experiments

CNN launched two specialty news channels for the American market which would later close amid competitive pressure: CNNSI shut down in 2002, and CNNfn shut down after nine years on the air in December 2004. CNN and Sports Illustrated's partnership continues today online at CNNSI.com. CNNfn's former website now redirects to money.cnn.com, a product of CNN's strategic partnership with with Money Magazine.


Online

File:CNN-Screenshot.JPG
Screenshot of CNN's Website - CNN.com

CNN debuted its news website CNN.com (then known as as CNN Interactive or CNNi) on August 30 1995. Initially an experiment, interest in CNN.com grew steadily over its first decade and today CNN.com is now one of the most popular news websites in the world. The wide-spread growth of blogs, social media and user-generated content has had a profound effect on the network, and blogs in particular have focused CNN's previously scattershot online offerings, most noticeably in the development and launch of CNN Pipeline in late 2005.

CNN Pipeline is the name of a paid subscription service, its corresponding website, and a content delivery client that provides streams of live video from up to four sources, on-demand access to CNN stories and reports, and optional pop-up "news alerts" to computer users. The installable client is available to users of PCs running Microsoft Windows. There is also a browser-based "web client" that does not require installation. While CNN encourages users to install the local client, the browser-based version offers undocumented access to live and on-demand video at full-screen (right-click the video image and choose zoom -> full screen) that the installed client does not.

CNN Pipeline typically features a live feed of CNN International on Pipe 1, live feeds from press conferences and newsworthy events on Pipes 2 and 3, and graphical weather/financial information on Pipe 4. CNN simulcasts feeds from C-SPAN and NASA-TV (sometimes augmented by CNN with additional graphics and titles) during key congressional debates and space missions, respectively. CNN offers Pipeline access to domestic programs such as The Situation Room and Anderson Cooper 360 only during breaking news and special events, through many of the reports featured on domestic programs are quickly available on-demand.

Since CNN Pipeline is a paid-subscription service, content is presented commercial-free. Commercial breaks on CNN International are replaced by informational text graphics that summarize financial, sports, and world headlines. Late-night viewers are often treated to raw, unedited feeds from field correspondents around the world that offer a unique, unvarnished, and occasionally comical glimpse at the barely-controlled chaos behind-the-scenes.

The now-defunct topical news-program Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics was the first CNN program to feature a round-up of blogs in 2004. Blog coverage was expanded when Inside Politics was folded into the The Situation Room. In 2006, CNN launched CNN Exchange and CNN iReport, initiatives designed to further introduce and centralize the impact of everything from blogging to citizen journalism within the CNN brand. CNN iReport which features user-submitted photos and video, has achieved considerable traction, with increasingly professional-looking reports filed by amateur journalists, many still in high school or college.

CNN continues to expand its online platform and now offers several RSS feeds and podcasts.

Trivia

  • The most famous station ID is a five-second musical jingle with James Earl Jones' simple but classic line, "This is CNN." Jones' voice can still be heard today in updated station IDs.[citation needed]
  • The most widely-used slogan at time of writing is "The Most Trusted Name In News".[citation needed]
  • On March 21, 2006, the Gallup polling company dropped CNN as its outlet for electronic distribution, due in part to CNN's lower ratings.[7]
  • CNN has been parodied many times. Many movies outside of the Turner Broadcasting Network also mention CNN in their storylines. In the movie Mr Bones appears a news network with the name "CCN", its logo being in the same font as CNN's. In the video game Desert Strike, CNN is parodied by calling the news station, EANN, with the EA standing for the video game company's name, Electronic Arts. The movie Batman Forever shows a newscast on "GNN" (presumably standing for Gotham News Network) The Logo is very similair to the "CNN" logo. Other parodies, or references include Command and Conquer Zero Hour's American campaign, featuring updates on missions with a correspondent from BNN, the rapper Eminem included a similar alteration in his song Without Me, where, dressed up as Osama Bin Laden he was reported on by ENN, obviously due to his name being Eminem.
    See also: Groland and CNNNN
  • On February 9 2007, CNN referred to the death of Anna Nicole Smith 522% more frequently than it did the Iraq war. [2]

Current shows

Former shows

Specialized channels

Personalities

Present

Past

Bureaus

CNN bureau locations
Note: Boldface indicates that they are CNN's original bureau, meaning they have been in operation since the network's founding.

United States

Worldwide

Controversies

Main article: CNN controversies

CNN has been accused of bias for allegedly promoting both a conservative and a liberal agenda based on previous incidents. It has also been accused of being slanted toward US interests when reporting on world conflicts and wars.[9] Critics such as LA Weekly say it is part of an alleged pro-war news media[4]. CNN denies any bias.

See also

References

  1. ^ Me and Ted ... Reese Schonfeld Bio
  2. ^ Charles Bierbauer, CNN senior Washington correspondent, discusses his 19-year career at CNN.
  3. ^ "The State of the News Media 2007 : Audience". Project for Excellence in Journalism. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
  4. ^ Deborah Potter (01-01-2007). "The Secrets of Fox's Success". American Journalism Review. Retrieved February 06. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Kelly Heyboer (01-06-2000). "Cable Clash". American Journalism Review. Retrieved February 06. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2006/narrative_cabletv_audience.asp?cat=3&media=6
  7. ^ Gallup Polling Drops CNN After 'Low Ratings', Drudge Report
  8. ^ Rev. Jesse Jackson
  9. ^ CNN Exposed, cnnEXPOSED.com
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