Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Happy Birthday CNN

It was 25 years ago today...

CNN held such promise in those early days. I know I was exited about it at the time. To bad it has largely devolved into the cable news slime along with its competition at MSNBC and Fox News.

UPDATE: CNN founder Ted Turner, who no longer has any control over CNN, speaks out about the news channels downfall.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- CNN founder Ted Turner said Wednesday he would do things differently if he still held the reins at the news network he founded 25 years ago.

[snip]

Turner said he had envisioned CNN filling the role on television that The New York Times fills in newspapers, and implied that CNN once did so, but had slipped.

"Somebody's got to be the most respected name in television news, and I wanted that position for CNN," he said.

"I wanted to be the New York Times of the airway -- not the New York Post, but the New York Times -- and that's what we set out to do, and we did it," he said, referring to the tabloid owned by the Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who also owns CNN's chief competition, Fox News.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Although I still check out the CNN website for breaking news, their website is obviously not targeted at people truly interested in the news - and I totally agree with you that the televised news coverage is lacking.

Would be nice to have an alternative on cable - a news service that is dedicated to news instead of entertainment, or spectacle - imagine that!

As far as the web, thank goodness for many of the great newspapers, magazines, etc., which are available - and get this - mostly for free!

ET