1、135Unit Five Cable News Network and TelecommunicationText AHistory as it HappensLinking leaders as never before, CNN1 haschanged the way the world does its business.By William A. HenryOn the night that the bombs began to fall on Baghdad, Gilbert Lavoie, press secretary to Canadas Prime Minister, Bri
2、an Mulroney, telephoned his counterpart Marlin Fitzwater at the White House in Washington. “Marlin said, Hi, what are you doing?” Lavoie recalls, and I said, “Im doing the same thing you are watching CNN.”So was virtually every other senior official in virtually every government.2 In that respect, a
3、t least, the night of Jan. 16, 1991, was actually rather ordinary. From Rome to Riyadh, London to Lagos, Beijing to Buenos Aires, Cable News Network is on more or less continuously in the suites of a vast array of chiefs of state and foreign ministers.3 It has become the common frame of reference4 f
4、or the worlds power elite. Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, George Bush and Saddam Hussein the headline sparring partners of the year just past are all alert watchers.5 What a computer message can accomplish within an office, CNN achieves around the clock, around the globe; it gives everyone the
5、 same information, the same basis for discussion, at the same moment. That change in communication has in turn affected jurnalism, intelligence gathering,6 economics, diplomacy and even, in the minds of some scholars, the very concept of what it is to be a nation.Only a glint of thought to its found
6、er, Ted Turner, a dozen years ago, CNN is now the worlds most widely heeded news organization.7 British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd insists on staying only at hotels that carry the network. Iraqi ministers Tariq Aziz and Nizar Hamdoon would not so much as lower the volume of the non-stop CNN in t
7、he background while granting interviews to John Wallach, foreign affairs editor of the Hearst newspapers Washington bureau not even, Wallach says, for the Networks Hollywood Minute.8 When the name of his country was inadvertently omitted from a news quiz9 about nations participation in Novembers Mid
8、dle East peace talks, Jordans King Hussein was watching and was so irritated that he had palace officials immediately call CNNs Amman office to complain.Singapore stockbrokers protested their governments politically inspired ban on private satellite dishes, arguing that access to instantaneous war n
9、ews on CNN was vital for 136anticipating fluctuations in world financial markets.10 The terrorists who held Terry Anderson hostage in Lebanon used CNN as the vehicle to release a videotape of his appeal for help.11 CNN can be seen at the E1 Kabir Hotel in Tripoli, favored by Muammar Gaddafis associa
10、tes. It can also be seen at the Vatican, where Archbishop12 John Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications,13 rises by 6 a. m. to watch and “know what to pray about.”CNN has become the fourth most respected brand name in the U.S., according to a recent poll of 2 000 people
11、, ranked just behind the Disney parks, Kodak and Mercedes-Benz and ahead of Rolex, Levis IBM and AT36 it is a foregone conclusion37 that CNN will do the story first.At many events it covers, from summits38 to celebrated trials,39 CNN itself becomes a major news source. During the Arab-Israeli peace
12、conference in Madrid last November, where access was severely limited, nearly all of the 4,600 journalists had to follow the proceedings on CNN.40 A common temptation is to skip other reporting and just rehash what shows up on the screen. Sometimes even the most serious reporters are forced to rely
13、on CNNs better access. As retired U.S. Air Force General Michael Dugan quipped about his work as military analyst for CBS, “What CBS did during the gulf war was watch CNN.” The same might be said of most other broadcast and print news41 teams.The appeal of CNN has inspired would-be imitators. Japans
14、 NHK42 network explored creating a global channel but gave up when it projected the costs at $800 million a year. The British Broadcasting Corp.43 plunged ahead into the Asian market in a joint venture with Hong Kongs richest businessman, Li Kashing.44 Their satellite channel of news and soft featur
15、es,45 one of five on the nascent STAR-TV system,46 is reaching 38 Asian nations that number half the worlds population. But only about half a million households actually own satellites,47 while an indeterminate number of others get some part of the service through broadcast channels. The programming
16、 is already popular in India and other regions formerly a part of the British Empire, and it is scheduled to be offered later in Africa and even on CNNs home turf48 in North America; it already competes with CNN on a small scale in Europe. BBC officials say their new entry into the global-village sw
17、eepstakes offers more analysis, more authoritative opinion and a broader world view.49 CNN counters that it too has an international outlook, that its reporting resources are more extensive and that world audiences are keenly interested in the U.S. , in every aspect from politics to popular culture.
18、 Another potential competitor is the still-evolving European Broadcasting Unions50 news channel taking programs from 10 member nation albeit51 without the advantages of a shared style or even a common language.Within the U.S., so far the Big Three networks have struggled to keep up with CNNs newsgat
19、hering.52 But former anchorman Cronkite is fretful: “What I fear is that in their straitened economic conditions, the networks will find CNN an excuse to shuck some of 139their own responsibilities.53 I can conceive that as the situation grows worse, the networks may say, The public is being served
20、by CNN. We dont have to be there.” That may already be true. For the 1992 U.S. presidential nominating conventions, only CNN has committed to gavel-to-gavel coverage.54“CNN has put a tremendous strain on the print press,” says Thoms Winship, editor emeritus of The Boston Globe and a former president
21、 of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.55 “During the past five years, print56 has been clobbered57 by television and has generally failed to respond by emphasizing the analytic and investigative stories that TV cannot do so well,” Jim Hoagland, a two-time Pulitzer prizewinner58 for his inter
22、national coverage59 in The Washington Post,60 says, “The effect of CNN should be to persuade newspapers that the stenographic mode of reporting is obsolete, a real dinosaur.61 The simple news account of an event that much of our andience has already witnessed is no longer sufficient. Weve got to shi
23、ft to a more analytical mode or find the story that TV couldnt or didnt cover.” The plight of newspapers in a video age has rarely been more vivid than during the early days of the Gulf War and the Soviet leadership crisis.62 New columns looked as though they had been put together simply by watching
24、 CNN the night before. Analyses were interesting but often nearly 24 hours out of date and no longer relevant.For some social theorists, CNN has become far more than a news medium. It is considered prime evidence for the evolution of McLuhans borderless world.63 As corporations become multinational
25、and free trade transcends tariffs,64 as Europe develops a single currency and other regions build spheres of economic cooperation, as pop culture and air travel and migration and, yes, television make the world psychologically smaller, these theorists contend that the concept of nationalism recedes.
26、 Says Joshua Meyrowitz, professor of communication at the University of New Hampshire: “Many of the things that define national sovereignty are fading. National sovereignty wasnt based only on power and barbed wire, it was based also on information control.65 Nations are losing control over informat
27、ional borders because of CNN.”Not everyone likes CNN or rates its influence so positively. U.S. conservatives have complained for years about its tolerant attitude toward erstwhile communist leaderships and other dictatorships, which they see as a cynical ploy to assist the network in doing business
28、 in those countries or as a boost to Turners personal ambitions as a world peacemaker.66 These critics were appalled when Turner himself genially interviewed Fidel Castro.67 They were outraged when CNN left reporter Peter Arnett in place in Baghdad throughout the Gulf War to convey the Iraqi point o
29、f view. Some Business executives also perceive ardent environmentalism68 at CNN as another attitude encouraged, if not imposed, by the ecology-minded69 Turner. More liberal observers also question CNNs detachment. The Washington Post columnist70 Hoagland describes the network as responsible and fair
30、 but adds, “It seems to me that they are probably more sensitive to host-government reaction than most 140journalistic organizations would be because of their approach of trying to be everywhere.71 And it seems to me that they lean over backward72 to carry what I think of often as non-news from coun
31、tries where they clearly want to be in that market.” For example, he cites reports on econmic development from Central Europe that look like video press releases73 about new factories.Scholars frequently belittle CNN for its unscholarly haste and supposed shallowness. In place of slowly mulled resea
32、rch from experts steeped in their field, CNN delivers raw news.74 It features live events, bulletins and studios full of talking heads often with scant analysis.75 CNN came into being just as the Big Three American networks were moving away from their tradition of in-house experts,76 and the new net
33、work set the pace. CNN anchors are apt to be more trained in the mechanics of television than in the nuances of the many subjects they discuss. The reporting ranks number mostly workaday generalists.77CNN nonetheless does a good job on business, technology, entertainment and sports and capably cover
34、s the White House and U.S. politics. It can show great sensitivity in dealing with racial and multicultural conflict and is attuned to the concerns of women and gays.78 But its intellectual thinness is evident in the way it covers foreign affairs with the same tired emphasis on revolutions, wars, fa
35、mines and disasters found in the traditional half-hour nightly network news show, despite having the airtime79 to give a more rounded picture. An emphasis on events rather than analysis may, however, be a factor in CNNs broad appeal,80 argues G. Cleveland Wilhoit, professor of journalism at Indiana
36、University and associate director of the university-wide Institute for Advanced Study. Says he: “Ideological critics of the media, left and right, agree on one thing that the press is too arrogant, too ready to tell people what to think.81 By its very structure, CNN is populist.82 It provides the ra
37、w materials of the story and lest the viewers form their own opinions.”The idea that CNN ought to be more analytic and instructive is not universally held among government and business leaders either.83 Many like the network just as it is. Sir Bernard Ingham used to be the combative, press secretary
38、 to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, herself so big a fan of CNN that the network has made special arrangements for her to get it at her office. Says Ingham: “I dont think we want analysis. What we want is reporting of the facts. People can form their own judgments. There are too dam
39、 many journalists analyzing the news84.A great deal of the criticism of CNN from outside the U.S. seems to be rooted in general resentment of U.S. power and influence.85 The network is often labeled as the latest example of U.S. cultural imperialism. Longtime French TV news correspondent Christine O
40、ckrent calls CNN “a U.S. channel with a global vocation. but which sees the world through an American prism,”86 She is dismissive87 of its most widely discussed experiment, the weekly World Report, which airs unedited stories taken from TV channels around the 141world. Says Ockrent: “Asking Serbian
41、television for its reading of the situation is not providing world news but merely the Serbian version. When CNNs footage88 is not homemade in the U.S., it is homemade in some other country. Thats not being international.”Brazils Foreign Minister, Francisco Rezek, argues, however, that CNNs bias is
42、toward values the world ought to emulate. “The network is markedly North American,” he contends. “But while a universal stage, a truly global network , would be better, the American stage is the next best thing.89 There is no nation that is so varied, that has such a mixture of cultures and beliefs
43、and that represents the two most important lessons of this century pluralist democracy and open, competitive economies. CNN helps strengthen democracy.”CNN officials readily acknowledge that despite having a round-the-clock schedule, the network does not explore most topics deeply. Apart from its fr
44、equently lively and sometimes informative talk shows,90 it remains a headline service with a high percentage of repetition and overlap. One of its two U.S. cable channels, Headline News, offers an endlessly repeating half-hour loop of updated news, sports, economics and entertainment bulletins.91 Th
45、e other, the original CNN, mixes news hours with other mass-appeal public-affairs formats, It does not aspire, in any hour of its 24 a day, to the highbrow.Part of the reason CNN has survived its past economic travails is Turners go-for-broke nervelessness.92 Part is having been, as Turner says, in
46、the right place at the right time. Part is the corporate willingness to gamble. When CNN executive Ed (“No Relation”)93 Turner was interviewed by owner Ted, the trickiest question was “Ed, are you a dreamer?” At nearly any other company, the correct answer would be no. At CNN, it is yes.But perhaps
47、the largest factor in CNNs prosperity is, paradoxically, sound business management.94 The network demonstrated to its fat rivals95 that news could be delivered much more cheaply. CNNs salaries were lower but its people were hungrier and harder working. It did not get trapped into make-work union rul
48、es.96 It pioneered the practice of cross training,97 in which employees must learn and perform multiple skills. It reduced the size of camera crews from four to two, a standard that is now emulated throughout the industry.The most expensive thing CNN does is the most necessary to its survival: broad
49、casting live and at length from remote locations.98 Says London bureau chief David Feingold: “The whole idea of journalism is to be a witness.” The network pioneered the use of costly satellite uplinks packages of technology that can be disassembled into suitcase-size components weighing less than 45 kg each and capable of being checked as luggage onto an ordinary passenger jet.99 The trick is not to let the technological capacity dominate the editors news judgment, not to do a story simply because one can. Explains Paris bureau 142chief Peter
