Cable News Network (CNN)

Cable News Network ( CNN ) is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner . Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States. While the news channel has numerous affiliates , CNN primarily broadcasts from its headquarters at the CNN Center in Atlanta , the Time Warner Center in New York City, and studios in Washington, D.C. , and Los Angeles. CNN is owned by parent company Time Warner , and the U.S. news channel is a division of the Turner Broadcasting System . CNN is sometimes referred to as CNN/U.S. to distinguish the American channel from its international counterpart, CNN International . As of August 2010, CNN is available in over 100 million U.S. households. Broadcast coverage extends to over 890,000 American hotel rooms, and the U.S broadcast is also shown in Canada. Globally, CNN programming airs through CNN International, which can be seen by viewers in over 212 countries and territories. Starting late 2010, the domestic version CNN/U.S., is available in high definition to viewers in Japan under the name CNN HD.

CNN's first broadcast with David Walker and Lois Hart on June 1, 1980. The Cable News Network was launched at 5:00 p.m. EST on Sunday June 1, 1980. After an introduction by Ted Turner, the husband and wife team of David Walker and Lois Hart anchored the first newscast. Burt Reinhardt , the then executive vice president of CNN, hired most of CNN's first 200 employees, including the network's first news anchor , Bernard Shaw . Since its debut, CNN has expanded its reach to a number of cable and satellite television companies, several websites, and specialized closed-circuit channels (such as CNN Airport Network ). The company has 36 bureaus (10 domestic, 26 international), more than 900 affiliated local stations, and several regional and foreign-language networks around the world. The channel'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 . A companion channel, CNN2 , was launched on January 1, 1982 and featured a continuous 24-hour cycle of 30-minute news broadcasts. A year later, it changed its name to "CNN Headline News", and eventually it was simply called "Headline News". (In 2005, Headline News would break from its original format with the addition of Headline Prime , a prime-time programming block that features news commentary; and in 2008 the channel changed its name again, to "HLN".)

Major events Replica of the newsroom at CNN Center. Challenger disaster On January 28, 1986, CNN carried the only live television coverage of the launch and subsequent explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger , which killed the seven crew members. Baby Jessica rescue On October 14, 1987, an 18-month-old toddler named Jessica McClure fell down a well in Midland, Texas . CNN was quickly on the spot, and the event helped make their name. The New York Times ran a retrospective article in 1995 on the impact of live video news. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a moving picture is worth many times that, and a live moving picture makes an emotional connection that goes deeper than logic and lasts well beyond the actual event. This was before correspondents reported live from the enemy capital while American bombs were falling. Before Saddam Hussein held a surreal press conference with a few of the hundreds of Americans he was holding hostage. Before the nation watched, riveted but powerless, as Los Angeles was looted and burned. Before O. J. Simpson took a slow ride in a white Bronco, and before everyone close to his case had an agent and a book contract. This was uncharted territory just a short time ago." Gulf War The first Persian Gulf War in 1991 was a watershed event for CNN that catapulted the channel 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 from inside Iraq during the initial hours of the Coalition bombing campaign, with live reports from the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad by reporters Bernard Shaw , John Holliman , and Peter Arnett .

Operation Desert Storm as captured live on a CNN night vision camera with reporters narrating. The moment when bombing began was announced on CNN by Bernard Shaw on January 16, 1991 as follows: " This is Bernie Shaw. Something is happening outside...Peter Arnett, join me here. Let's describe to our viewers what we're seeing...The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated...We're seeing bright flashes going off all over the sky. " CNN's coverage of the initial hours of the Gulf War was carried by TV stations and networks around the world, resulting in CNN being watched by over a billion viewers worldwide-a feat that led to the subsequent creation of CNN International. The Gulf War experience brought CNN some much sought-after legitimacy and made household names of previously obscure 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-Pentagon correspondent Wolf Blitzer (now host of The Situation Room ) 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). Time Warner later produced a television movie , Live from Baghdad , about the channel's coverage of the first Gulf War, which aired on HBO . CNN effect Coverage of the first Gulf War and other crises of the early 1990s (particularly the infamous 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 . September 11 attacks

CNN breaking the news about the September 11 attacks . CNN was the first channel to break the news of the September 11 attacks . Anchor Carol Lin was on the air to deliver the first public report of the event. She broke into a commercial at 8:49 a.m. ET and said: " This just in. You are looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center , and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. CNN Center right now is just beginning to work on this story, obviously calling our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened, but clearly something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the south end of the island of Manhattan. That is once again, a picture of one of the towers of the World Trade Center. " Sean Murtagh, CNN vice-president of finance and administration, was the first network employee on the air. He called into CNN Center from his office at CNN New York bureau and said that a commercial jet hit the Trade Center. Daryn Kagan and Leon Harris were live on the air just after 9 a.m. ET as the second plane hit the World Trade Center and through an interview with CNN correspondent David Ensor , reported the news that U.S. officials determined "that this is a terrorist act." Later, Aaron Brown anchored through the day and night as the attacks unfolded. Brown had just come to CNN from ABC to be the breaking news anchor. Paula Zahn assisted in the September 11, 2001, coverage on her first day as a CNN reporter, a fact that she mentioned as a guest clue presenter on a 2005 episode of Jeopardy! . CNN has made archival files of much of the day's broadcast available in five segments plus an overview . 2008 U.S. election The stage for the second 2008 CNN-YouTube presidential debate . Leading up to the 2008 U.S. presidential election , CNN devoted large amounts of coverage to politics, including hosting candidate debates during the Democratic and Republican primary seasons. On June 3 and June 5, CNN teamed up with Saint Anselm College to sponsor the New Hampshire Republican and Democratic Debates. Later in 2007, the channel hosted the first CNN-YouTube presidential debates , a non-traditional format where viewers were invited to pre-submit questions over the internet via the YouTube video-sharing service. In 2008, CNN partnered with The Los Angeles Times to host two primary debates leading up to its coverage of Super Tuesday . CNN's debate and election night coverage led to its highest ratings of the year, with January 2008 viewership averaging 1.1 million viewers, a 41% increase over the previous year. On-air presentation In December 2008, CNN introduced its new graphics package, a comprehensive redesign replacing the existing style that had been used since 2004. [22] The design replaced the scrolling ticker that had been in use since 2001. Also, since March 1, 2009, the redundant CNN HD logo has been missing from the bottom left corner of the screen. CNN's new graphic design is similar to its sister channel, CNN International . The CNN logo itself has remained relatively unchanged since the channel's launch, except that it was originally displayed in yellow. On January 10, 2011, CNN introduced its most recent graphics package, in conjunction with the network-wide switch to a 16:9 letterbox format from 4:3 . Both of CNN's standard-definition and high-definition feeds now carry the same 16:9 format; however, video footage broadcast in standard-definition on either feed is not pillarboxed, resulting in black bars on the top and bottom of the screen as well as the left and right. World Business Today and World One , which both began to be simulcast from CNN International on January 17, 2011, are however both broadcast in the 4:3 picture format on the CNN SD feed.