CNN

The Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news channel and website headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, now owned by the Manhattan-based media conglomerate Warner Bros., Discovery (WBD), CNN was the first television channel to provide 24-hour news coverage and the first all-news television channel in the United States.

Quotes

In alphabetical order by author or source.

• I arrived at CNN with a suitcase, with my bicycle and with about 100 dollars.
  • Christiane Amanpour, as cited in "2000 Murrow Awards Ceremony", Radio-Television News Director's Association (September 13, 2000).

• When the war finally started, we were ready. On January 16, 1991, CNN anchor Bernard Shaw reported to the world, “The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated . . .” As predicted, Iraqi power and communications systems were destroyed by stealth fighter jets and cruise missiles. Every media company based in Baghdad—except CNN—lost power and transmission capabilities. Only CNN broadcast live to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. All channels turned to us for exclusive coverage; there was no place else. Back then CNN was the only global 24/7 news channel. That live coverage of war—the first time it had been televised worldwide—transformed the media landscape. CNN became required viewing for informed citizens and heads of state, the one truly global news source. That has changed now, with multiple cable networks and news breaking on social media. But without the investment in journalism from visionary owners such as Turner, today’s networks focus more on commentary than newsgathering.
  • Tom Johnson, “Desert Storm: The first war televised live around the world (and around the clock)”, Atlanta Magazine, (March 18, 2015).

• Playing by the rules of Entebbe in the world of CNN and Al Jazeera is a failure for its own sake.
  • Avi Nesher

• Remember that CNN, Time Warner, Disney, NBC, Fox News, and the rest are part of the same ideological system, serve the same clientele, and are owned by the same relatively tiny group of people whose interest is to keep things as they are. Memory is an inhibition, a possible threat to their hegemony, just as it is very dangerous for a critic to keep making connections between supposedly un- or nonpolitical institutions like the Supreme Court and the Constitution, and on the other hand, base commercial interests.
  • Edward Said, "American Elections: System or Farce?" (2000), published in From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map (2004)

• You turn on CNN, that’s all they cover. [...] Covid, Covid, pandemic, Covid, Covid. You know why? They're trying to talk people out of voting. People aren't buying it, CNN, you dumb bastards.
  • Donald Trump as cited in "Trump Calls CNN ‘Dumb Bastards’ For Covering 'Covid, Covid, Covid'", Forbes (October 19, 2020).

• Why didn't CNN break that story? I was outraged! Haven't they ever seen Dickens's A Christmas Carol? Scrooge felt a lot happier when he saved Tiny Tim and bought the turkey for the poor family, right?
  • Ted Turner interviewed by Maureen Dowd, as cited in "Ted's Excellent Idea", The New York Times (August 22, 1996).
  • The New York Times had reported the very wealthy give away proportionately less of their money than the less affluent.

• In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed. Just take the example from yesterday: I had given a telephone interview to CNN. Then, suddenly, CNN was shut down for a couple of minutes. It was the first time I experienced that my television went totally dead. I realized: Oh my God, it’s because of me. This is crazy! Which nation would do that? Maybe Cuba, North Korea, China. But what do they want, what are they so afraid of?
  • Ai Weiwei, BBC. "Ai Weiwei 'Does Not Feel Powerful'." at bbc.co.uk. October 13, 2011.

External links

• Encyclopedic article on CNN on Wikipedia
• Media related to CNN on Wikimedia Commons
• Black Hawk Down