Introduction

Memories from major global breaking news stories – such as the Tiananmen Square protest; both Gulf Wars; the death of Princess Diana; the Asian tsunami; the fallout following the 2008 Iranian elections; the News of the World hacking scandal; and, in the United States, news stories involving celebrities like O. J. Simpson, Martha Stewart, Bernard Madoff, Bill Cosby; and the Robert Mueller election interference investigation – are reminders that the press is on site to bring the viewing public up‐to‐the‐minute news stories. Newsgathering in the United States is plentiful and apparent on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and other news outlets. In addition, there are now three major US all‐news channels: CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. There are two global all‐news networks: CNN and the BBC World Television service.

Major US, European, and Asian radio and television broadcasters have been covering international events since the 1920s. Outside the United States, broadcasters such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Germany’s Deutsche Welle, along with international bureaus of major television networks, have been covering global events on their evening newscasts for decades. Any election of the Catholic pope or British royal weddings are widely covered. What is different now is that the Cable News Network (CNN) has changed the global media format in a dramatic way. Viewing went from a format based on 30‐ or 60‐minute prime‐time newscasts to a 24‐hour format focusing on news and public affairs programming from both national and global perspectives. CNN and other all‐news networks thrive on controversy, breaking news stories, coups and earthquakes, and stories that go on for days, or even weeks, such as tsunamis and hurricanes. Sometimes CNN’s coverage of natural disasters results in audience ratings increasing to record numbers, because it proved there was a niche market for all‐news television. CNN is a media property of Time Warner and has been losing market share, particularly to Fox News and more and more to MSNBC as well. (I will discuss this phenomenon further in a later section.)

News crosses domestic and international boundaries without regard for time or space. International communication and new technologies have had a profound effect on news institutions, news sources, newsgathering techniques, and audiences almost everywhere. The global media trend grew throughout the twentieth century, along with the global economy. This was made possible by radio, wire services, magazines, newspapers, satellites, videophones, and the advent of global all‐news networks in the 1980s. As more countries opened their borders to imported signals, both news and entertainment took on greater importance as media firms of all varieties sought larger audiences. These larger audiences were often from other core nations, as well as from semiperipheral nations, and occasionally peripheral nations. Media firms sought out these larger audiences in order to increase advertising revenue for the commercially based global television networks. From the electronic colonialism perspective, the potential impact of advertising on consumer behavior was frequently of greater cultural concern than the programs themselves. The implications of global advertising and its relation to world system and electronic colonialism theories are detailed in Chapter 14.

Along with international news coverage comes growing competition. By the 1980s, the world had developed a huge appetite for television programming of all kinds, including news and information. Interestingly, in the early 1980s it was Ted Turner who took the bold initiative to establish the first 24‐hour all‐news network. It was based in Atlanta, Georgia. He saw a need and stepped in with his Turner Broadcasting Company. On June 1, 1980, Turner introduced the Cable News Network, otherwise known as CNN. In addition to CNN, Turner launched CNN Headline News in 1981 and, the Cable News Network International (CNNI) in 1985, in response to increasing competition. CNNI’s goals were to expand internationally oriented programming, upgrade satellite carriage, expand its newsgathering capabilities, and become the primary global television network for news. Ted Turner deserves credit for his tenacity, vision, and deep pockets in terms of realizing that there was a market out there for 24‐hour news. He sought to create a better‐informed public.

Without a doubt, CNN is the godfather of global television news reporting to audiences around the world. Millions in over 200 nations now watch the 24‐hour all‐news format. Historically, the markets for Britain’s Economist or the American International Herald Tribune were early indications that there was a niche market in print for the international news sector. What CNN managed to do was to make the development of the niche television news market a global phenomenon. As the global economy evolves and expands, people are defining themselves in terms of television viewing more as regional (e.g., European or Latin) or as world citizens. They are concerned about world events as well as local, regional, and national events. Turner understood this desire for global information. He had the crucial financial resources to keep CNN on air during its early years. It was not until the mid‐1980s that CNN broke even, let alone made a profit.

Before CNN, the prestigious French newspaper Le Monde (The World) had the definition and concept right. The trouble was that it never had the distribution system to become a world newspaper, and possibly the fact that it wasn’t in English was a disadvantage. Originally, radio faced similar barriers, with one major exception – the BBC World Service. Although there were other world radio services, none had the network clout, the vast number of colonies as a captive audience, or the international respectability of the BBC World Service. In terms of television, originally only nation‐states, for the most part, developed and licensed television networks. Many of these television networks were frequently just an extension of national radio networks. They were delivered by way of limited terrestrial microwave networks or via telephone lines within a nation’s borders. No transnational television systems were created until the reality of CNN’s success forced other nations, particularly within the European Union, to consider competing services, such as Euronews. Satellites were the major technical development behind CNN’s success, as well as the creation of other networks, such as France 24 and Al Jazeera.

CNN was so successful that it attracted competition. Currently, two of CNN’s main competitors in Europe and Asia are satellite channels, including BSkyB and the BBC. In 1994 the BBC launched a 24‐hour television news service, starting in Asia. Although the BBC had previously run a limited European service, the Asian initiative made it a full‐fledged competitor of CNN. Another CNN competitor is the EU’s Euronews, an effort to present foreign news and analysis from a pan‐European perspective.

The French government funded a French equivalent of CNN in order to bring a French public policy perspective to international issues. Launched in 2006, this has been branded as France 24. The new channel received millions of euros in start‐up funds and represents the French challenge to the CNN editorial stance on world events, much as Al Jazeera and Al‐Arabiya represent the Arabic viewpoint and challenge to CNN. France 24 wants the world to understand the French perspective, as well as French cultural values. It broadcasts in French, Arabic, and English 24/7. France 24 is using the Internet as its major distribution system as well as being a video broadcaster via cable/satellite. It sees CNN as its major competitor and has put together a staff of 700 full‐time employees, who are complemented by over 1000 foreign correspondents or “stringers” around the globe. Their goal is to make France 24 the leading video site for international news.

Because of its national and international successes, CNN has managed to attract US‐based as well as global competition. Two new 24‐hour all‐news networks – MSNBC and Fox News – now provide strong domestic competition for CNN and its headline news networks, rebranded as HLN (see Figure 10.1).¹ This chapter details CNN’s major international media role from its inception to its current activities. It also deals with other major global media organizations such as the BBC, Voice of America, Radio Martí, and Deutsche Welle.

International news and information gathering changed because of Ted Turner’s CNN. A new era of global reporting was born in 1980 as domestic boundaries became obsolete in an era of satellite and cable. Although several countries and companies were entering the global information marketplace, no one news source was to be as successful as Turner Broadcasting and its crown jewel, CNN.

CNN, originally a division of Turner Broadcasting System, is the world’s international news leader. In October 1996 Time Warner acquired Turner Broadcasting for $6.54 billion, and Ted Turner became vice‐president of Time Warner and its largest shareholder. He has since resigned and has lost a fortune, as the later merger of Time Warner with AOL has been a financial disaster. The CNN merger created an unparalleled media giant with the ability to bring the most thorough, immediate, and live coverage of the world’s news to a worldwide audience. In the pursuit of timely, unbiased, and in‐depth news reporting, CNN pioneered innovative techniques and broke new ground for the television news industry. The high‐energy environment at CNN and its sister networks is home to over 4000 employees worldwide. Currently, CNN has 36 bureaus worldwide. It has also reached several milestones. Besides launching CNN Headline News and CNNI, CNN has also branched out into CNN Radio. This division provides all‐news programming to nearly 500 radio stations nationwide. In 1988 the division introduced Noticiero CNNI, which produces six hours of Spanish news for distribution on CNNI in the United States and throughout Latin America. And in 1995 CNN was launched into cyberspace. CNN Interactive is the world’s leading interactive news service. Its staff of world‐class journalists and technologists are dedicated to providing 24‐hour‐a‐day access to accurate and reliable news and information from any location.

As a unit of Time Warner, CNN has not fared well. A series of senior management changes and missteps at Time Warner have adversely impacted CNN. With budget cuts looming, CNN is stuck in second place, after Fox, and sometimes even slips to third, after MSNBC, in the weekly ratings war. Its problems have not gone unnoticed. The internal pressure is from Time Warner, which is demanding more profit and a return to top ranking. Consider this devastating commentary by Michael Wolff in the widely read USA Today:

CNN the news network that nobody likes, or watches or can fix, is looking for a new CEO. Even if you actually believe you can fix it, it’s far from clear that anybody would want you to. Although the network is an embarrassment to everybody who works there, as well as to the industry as a whole … So, the main job for new CNN CEO may be just to bear the humiliation of it all.²

The new CEO of CNN was appointed in 2013 and he will have to keep a constant eye on expenses and ad revenues, which will likely translate into keeping expensive foreign bureaus and reporting to a minimum.

First Live Broadcast

CNN’s first live broadcast involved the high‐profile black civil rights leader and well‐known Democrat Vernon Jordan. On May 29, 1980, Jordan was shot in Fort Wayne, Indiana. President Jimmy Carter visited him in hospital. CNN distributed the story live during the day before the other major networks had a chance because traditional networks held back such breaking stories for their major evening newscasts. The networks were scooped during the day and this was to be repeated frequently as CNN broke stories at whatever time the events took place.

Tiananmen Square

Another major news opportunity in the late 1980s had drastic and unexpected consequences for CNN. In May 1989 the USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev made an official visit to China. Because this was the first summit meeting since 1958 between the leaders of the two largest communist nations, all major US networks were granted permission to broadcast from China. CNN, with anchor Bernard Shaw, received permission to establish a temporary outdoor studio in Beijing, close to the Sheraton Hotel. CNN set up a portable satellite earth station in order to transmit its signal to its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. After six days, President Gorbachev left China, but CNN had permission from the Chinese authorities to transmit for another day. Fortuitously for CNN, the Tiananmen Square confrontation occurred within the next 24 hours. The Chinese authorities were devastated by the global coverage provided by CNN. President Bush, who was at his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, stated that he was watching the events unfold live on CNN and that all he knew was what CNN was showing – just like the rest of the world. The drama escalated as the Tiananmen Square demonstrators continued to defy Chinese troops and tanks. A separate drama began to emerge as Chinese authorities attempted to cut off the live CNN coverage. The CNN crew refused to disconnect their equipment and the entire incident and confrontation was broadcast live. The Chinese authorities were outraged, but CNN would not cease live coverage until it received an official letter from the Chinese Ministry of Telecommunications revoking the original seven‐day transmission agreement. A kind of double coverage ensued when ABC began covering CNN’s situation along with its own coverage of the confrontation. During CNN’s coverage, Bernard Shaw explained how the network managed to break its live news:

If you’re wondering how CNN has been able to bring you this extraordinary story … we brought in our own flyaway gear, about eighteen oversized suitcases with our satellite gear … We unpacked our transmission equipment and our dish. So whatever you’ve seen in the way of pictures and, indeed, in the way of words, came from our microwave units at Tiananmen Square bounced right here to the hotel, through our control room on one of the upper floors – I won’t mention the floor for protective reasons – back down through cables up on the CNN satellite dish, up on the satellite, and to you across the world … And I have to say this, for those cable stations that want to cut away, and I can’t believe that any of you would want to cut away, you’re gonna risk the anger and angst of all your viewers if you do … We have about two and a half minutes left on the satellite.³

The letter from the Chinese Ministry of Telecommunications finally arrived; it was delivered live and within minutes CNN coverage stopped. The drama and the replays out of Atlanta placed CNN in a new light. It was now truly the global news network it had always claimed to be. But it needed another major global story in order to demonstrate that it had the flexibility, equipment, and personnel to deliver live news coverage that was either comparable or superior to that of the major US and European networks. The Gulf War provided that opportunity.

The First Gulf War

CNN was well prepared to be the media outlet for live coverage of the 1991 Gulf crisis. It carried not only the bombings but also Saddam Hussein’s meeting with British hostages. And when Jordan’s King Hussein wanted to broadcast a message about the Gulf crisis, he delivered it live on CNN. World leaders began to communicate about the Gulf crisis through CNN; leaders in North America, Europe, and the Middle East updated themselves on the status of the war by following CNN’s live coverage. It also made CNN reporter Peter Arnett a media superstar. Previously, both Ted Turner and CNN executives had courted Middle Eastern governments and television officials, and now that groundwork was paying off. CNN was granted permission to broadcast live from Baghdad. The other US networks watched in envy as CNN produced the only global live coverage from the war zone, frequently from behind enemy lines. Bernard Shaw joined the CNN crew in order to provide 24‐hour coverage. Despite warnings from the White House to vacate the region, CNN reporters and production crew decided to stay. When the bombing began on January 16, 1991, all major US and European networks had crews in the Middle East. But four days after the war began, only 17 remained of the hundreds of journalists and crew members in the Middle East. Nine of these were from CNN. Following Operation Desert Storm, CNN, and particularly Peter Arnett, were criticized for granting Iraqi officials too much airtime during the war. American officials wanted a cheerleading tone. The US military sought propaganda to persuade the American public that the war was necessary. Given the foibles of live coverage, some mistakes were inevitable, but internationally CNN became the new global medium for breaking world news. It was considered the new gold standard because it had now beaten all television networks with its war coverage.

The 1991 Gulf War presented challenges as well as opportunities for CNN. The challenges were twofold. First, was the US public willing to support military action against a foreign country, particularly after the debacle of the Vietnam War? Second, would CNN crews, including production staff, be permitted, as well as technically equipped, to send live signals from Baghdad, the capital of Iraq? The opportunity was straightforward: CNN would be able to broadcast a major international conflict live not only to its vast US audience, but also to a substantial number of viewers around the globe. What made the First Gulf War all the more pivotal for CNN’s success was the fact that it was not just the first but also one of the few broadcasters permitted by both Iraqi and US military authorities to continue shooting video. Their European, Canadian, and Asian broadcasting counterparts were denied access to frontline footage.

The First Gulf War turned out to be another defining moment in CNN’s history. Even the leaders of the two nations engaged in the conflict – the United States and Iraq – openly conceded that they were following the progress of the war on CNN. CNN was interpreting the war for the world. This war was CNN’s war. This fact bothered many foreign broadcasters, public policy experts, and politicians in other nations since they were reduced to viewing events and interpreting history in English and at least a step behind CNN. As a result, after the war several governments, particularly those in Europe, established competitor or alternative television services so that, when major international events occurred, they would have their own broadcasters, analysts, and film footage to be able to present their perspectives, rather than having to rely on a foreign broadcaster such as CNN. These competitor networks include France 24, Euronews, as well as an expanded BBC World Television service, which is covered in greater detail later in this chapter. The First Gulf War heightened the context in which the news media covered and defined international news and information stories. Philip Taylor summarizes the significance of CNN’s new role as a result of the First Gulf War:

Throughout the autumn and winter of 1990, thanks to the role which Cable News Network (CNN) had defined for itself as an instant electronic interlocutor between Baghdad and Washington, it became clear that television would play a particularly prominent role in any conflict, with Saddam and Bush frequently exchanging verbal blows via the ten‐year‐old television network once lampooned by rivals as the “Chicken Noodle News.” But it was already apparent that, by providing a public forum to the traditionally secretive world of diplomacy, CNN was quite simply changing the rules of international politics and that, as a consequence, it was also likely to alter the way in which modern warfare would be projected onto the world’s television screens.⁴

The reporter known for this unprecedented coverage, which made him one of the world’s most visible reporters, was Peter Arnett. Arnett’s success in Baghdad is cited as his most significant accomplishment simply because his coverage of the war was broadcast live on television around the globe. CNN positioned Arnett as the archetypal journalist, the reporter who met newly defined professional challenges at great personal risk and hardship. By staying behind enemy lines to report the story, he exemplified the reporter’s responsibilities in an age of live satellite‐fed communications.

While some loved Arnett, others were critical of him for his supposed lack of loyalty to the United States, because he insisted on staying behind enemy lines. When Arnett reported that the allies had bombed a plant producing infant formula rather than biological weapons, as the US military insisted, public fears intensified that his dispatches were being used for propaganda purposes. At one point, US lawmakers pressed for control over his broadcasts. The Pentagon wanted him fired, and the CIA and the FBI also sought to discredit him.

CNN’s news coverage of the First Gulf War again highlighted the network’s unprecedented coverage in the international marketplace. But CNN wants to remain the “first choice” provider or gold standard of international news and information coverage. On an average day, CNN has a domestic audience of more than a million households. When major news events break, however, whether in China, Asia, or the Middle East, the ratings go through the roof. CNN captures the majority of the global television news audience. Interestingly, CNN did not send Arnett to Kosovo, after which his status at the network plummeted. He was dismissed by CNN in 1999.

CNN’s presence is felt in every part of the world. It has become synonymous with news from every corner of the world. Its founder, Ted Turner, transformed his Atlanta‐based company into a creditable international news service with the help of first‐class journalists. The network has launched a new era of global news and information coverage using aggressive strategies that include covering news whenever and wherever it happens, breaking the news first, and providing live coverage from the scene. All of these strategies have made Turner’s company the leader in shaping international events.⁵

A brief history of CNN is in order here. Turner dedicated the network to around‐the clock news operations in the early 1980s. Satellites were used to deliver CNN to cable operators, but only about 20% of TV viewing households in the United States received cable television. Turner needed more viewers if his new venture was to succeed. To increase cable access, he introduced ESPN, HBO, Nickelodeon, Arts & Entertainment (A&E), USA, Disney, Showtime, and C‐SPAN to attract a larger cable‐viewing audience (see Figure 10.2). By 1985 Turner’s original news channel was reaching more than 33 million households, or four out of five US homes with cable TV, and nearly 40% of all US homes with televisions. Headline News alone had 18 million subscribers. These numbers were vital to CNN’s economic success because larger audiences meant greater advertising revenues, and by this time CNN was attracting national advertising accounts. By the mid‐1980s Turner wanted to attract an even larger audience, so he turned to the global market for growth. As international trade and shifts in the world markets became more relevant to the US economy, these activities created a demand for more up‐to‐date information about the international scene. CNN also became a model niche cable channel that others began to mimic.

CNN’s family of networks has grown to nearly a dozen news channels and a wholesale news service (CNN Newsource) that sells video news to approximately 700 broadcast affiliates worldwide. With Turner’s array of 24‐hour networks and services, today CNN is a major player in domestic and international programming. CNN’s networks include CNN, HLN, CNN Radio, CNNI, CNN World Report news exchange, CNN Newsource, CNN Airport Network, CNN Interactive, CNN Money, and CNN en Español. CNN now has web pages in English, Arabic, Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese, and Korean. In 1999 it launched a Spanish‐language channel in Spain. This service was the first CNN local‐language news channel that was completely controlled and operated by staff outside its US corporate headquarters in Atlanta.

In a move that enhanced Turner’s presence in global markets, state media monopolies around the world began to allow modest competition from the 1980s. Countries such as India, Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, and South Africa wanted news services in addition to the local coverage that was brought to them by their state (public) broadcasters. Turner moved quickly to reach these new audiences by distributing CNN internationally. CNN now employs a satellite system that covers six continents; it reaches over 200 countries with potential access to half a billion people every day, and has a global team of almost 4000 people. Even in countries where CNN is unavailable to ordinary people, because of limited cable or satellite systems or because of political censorship, CNN International has become the first choice of viewers in major hotels, government offices, and presidential palaces. A remarkable aspect of CNN’s expansion in the 1990s was that it occurred while other US networks were slashing the budgets of their foreign bureaus. Clearly this changed in a negative direction with the global economic downturn, after it was taken over by Time Warner in 1996.

CNN has built much of its reputation as a creditable news source from such news coverage stories as the student protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the bombing of Baghdad during the First Gulf War, the burning of the Moscow Parliament building in 1993, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. Because of CNN’s extensive coverage of such important international news stories, it is now doing business in China, Iraq, and Russia. In 1997 CNN opened a bureau in Cuba, though it had to obtain US government approval first. One reason CNN has had such a rapid rise is its innovative use of communication technologies to reach larger audiences. Satellites gave CNN a national audience in 1980, and since then satellites have enabled Turner to be the first international broadcaster to link the globe using a mixture of Intelsat, Intersputnik, PanAmSat, and regional satellite signals when existing land‐based systems could not do the job or had been destroyed by calamity.

The strong relationships it has built with networks, news agencies, and broadcasting unions worldwide, as well as freelancers, have enabled CNN to bring news and information coverage to households around the world. Much of its coverage is found in CNN’s World Report program.

World Report

What has CNN World Report brought to the newsgathering table? Since 1987, World Report has been an internationally distributed news program consisting of news items contributed by foreign broadcasters. It has been an outlet for news organizations of any political persuasion to report news about their countries from their own perspective. As of 2013, over 350 stations representing 150 countries participate in the World Report. This suggests that it continues to serve the needs of world broadcasters. Various news items have been aired from public and private stations such as CCTV in China, Cubavision in Cuba, CyBC Bayrak TV in Cyprus, MASTV in Mexico, TV Asahi in Japan, RNTV‐Radio (which is a division of Radio Netherlands Worldwide), SABC in South Africa, and ZBC in Zimbabwe.

World Report has had a considerable effect on CNN and its coverage of high‐profile, controversial news and information stories. According to Ted Turner:

We never would have been allowed to stay in Iraq during the Iraqi war if it hadn’t been for the World Report. We’ve gotten a lot of access as a result of our making a real effort to having people from other countries and other news organizations feel comfortable about us. We’ve got a lot of access to world leaders and so forth, and then, allowed to be behind the lines and allowed to stay in circumstances where other news organizations weren’t allowed to. Partly that was the case that we’d been allowed because so many world leaders were watching us when there’s a conflict anywhere in the world, or anything controversial, where people, where leaders need to get their point across. Like Saddam Hussein did. At least we gave him some access that they otherwise wouldn’t have gotten if CNN wasn’t there, because basically we believe that everyone has a right to be heard.⁶

Turner Broadcasting Company’s international success is also its curse. CNN’s managers know they are no longer playing in a field of one. Imitators will strive to equal or surpass the US news company’s global reach. But CNN’s ability to watch its competitors and stay one step ahead will leave little room for a takeover. Competition is healthy for CNN because it keeps forcing the network to re‐examine fundamental strategies of global versus niche programming.

Today, executives at CNN state that their goal is to get people around the world to watch CNN. This means being more international in scope and more local from the standpoint of viewers in other parts of the world. To meet the information needs of the global market, CNN generates news programs that are compelling and relevant to a global audience. It also means that CNN reports on important events whenever and wherever they happen. By doing so, the network is trying to expand its role as a global communicator, the channel for diplomats and generals, and even angry crowds in streets and town squares – with the potential to shape public life in every corner of the planet.⁷ As mentioned, however, CNN’s success has attracted competition. Some of its chief competitors are discussed in the following sections.

Merger Matters

With AOL and Time Warner’s merger, CNN faced a new reality and a different set of bosses. CNN’s founder, Ted Turner, left the company in 2003. In 2001 CNN laid off almost 10% of its employees when it let 400 of them go. During the same era, it failed to replace its president Rich Kaplan, who was dismissed in 2000. The current president is not well liked by some staff members. CNN has also been losing market share to MSNBC, Fox, Internet news sites, and competing international services, such as BBC World TV. John Cook, in his piece “CNN’s Free Fall,” writes about the lack of strategic planning, downsizing, and new ownership as “the changes have fostered discontent and disillusionment among the rank and file, many of whom were perfectly content with the old CNN.”⁸ Cook also makes the point about a new, major shift away from the former model of news being the central focus to a personality‐centered schedule focused on stars such as Christiane Amanpour, Wolf Blitzer, Brian Nelson, and Jeff Greenfield.⁹ With this repositioning of CNN, along with new owner’s focus on the bottom line, the honesty, creativity, risk‐taking, and media acumen pioneered by Ted Turner have come to an ignominious end.

The CNN Effect

The CNN effect or factor refers to the process by which the coverage of a foreign event by CNN causes that event to be a primary concern for its audience, which in turn forces the federal government to act.¹⁰ What CNN chooses to focus on becomes a major public policy issue, or headache, for the US State Department. CNN has such an impact that it cannot be ignored in Washington. It has the effect of being an outside agenda‐setting voice for US foreign policy. This factor is extended when other networks begin to match CNN’s focus on a foreign news event. When other networks begin to match CNN’s coverage, the matter then becomes an issue for the governments of core nations. Others also argue that what CNN fails to cover, along with its growing budget cuts, mean that there is no public outcry for action and thus little assistance or policy attention is forthcoming.¹¹

For example, the US and British administrations were forced to respond to the Somalia crisis because CNN would not drop its coverage of it, whereas a civil war has raged for years in Sudan with no core nation response, because for a time CNN chose not to focus on that plight. Even former US secretaries of state have admitted that they have to keep abreast of what CNN is covering abroad.¹² In 2005 Florida governor Jeb Bush, reviewing the tsunami damage in Asia, lamented the fact that as soon as CNN left, so would the aid workers and public pressure to assist in the lengthy repairs and costs.

If foreign affairs events are not reported on CNN, the story disappears – whether for the US secretary of state, the British minister of foreign affairs, the head of the United Nations, or a Japanese ambassador. The ability of CNN to set the global agenda is new to the role of the global media. When CNN ignores an issue, the issue languishes and fails to make the radar of editors around the world, with few exceptions. A report on the Congo civil war in 2012 is an example:

The Congo conflict was characterized by passive effects stemming from media inattention: coverage was not voluminous, and there was little framing of stories that could be seen as advocating international involvement. Indeed, the conflict was framed as “intractable,” and UN peacekeeping efforts were generally criticized, thus providing little encouragement that additional international intervention would likely be effective.¹³

But the phenomenon of the CNN effect, its agenda‐setting, may be short‐lived as it loses market share. Yet at the same time the media’s public policy role will likely increase as other networks, as well as the Internet with its bloggers, pick up the role of focusing greater attention on foreign policy, global issues, and aid. At other times, when CNN focuses on an issue, such as Abu Ghraib and other scandal and torture violations, the governments of the United States and Great Britain are forced into a damage control mode. Their spin masters are mere amateurs when it comes to taking on the major media outlets, particularly CNN. An indication of CNN’s influence is the amount of research it has attracted. For example:

The Alerting function clearly is of some importance. And, while this by no means constitutes a wholesale endorsement of the CNN effect, it does appear to indicate that in the overall mix of factors leading to an international intervention, the international community is more likely to respond to a serious crisis in a country of marginal strategic or economic importance if the mainstream media are effective in alerting the population to the crisis.¹⁴

How CNN Was Out‐Foxed but Not Out‐Classed

CNN was the global media king in 1991, with its strong coverage of the First Gulf War. Yet less than a decade later Fox News overtook CNN in the US market, by using brash personalities like Sean Hannity, being in the right place at the right time,¹⁵ and supporting the wars and all things Republican.

In the early 2000s CNN was overtaken in the US domestic all‐news market by News Corp’s Fox News. CNN continued to attract the largest global news audience (BBC World TV is second), but in the crucial and enormous home market it was beaten to second and sometimes third place. This quickly translated into lower advertising rates, and at its parent Time Warner, which was bleeding due to AOL’s failure to turn a profit, CNN lost its top status. Several management changes at CNN mandated by Time Warner also failed to stop the ratings slide. With Fox News proudly catering successfully to a right‐of‐center audience, CNN has been left with an identity crisis as to what and how to attract back its own departed audience.

To put CNN’s problem in perspective, consider the results of the 2004 US presidential election. Basically, CNN has tried to be an objective and middle‐of‐the‐road network, and under Ted Turner’s leadership this formula worked very well. (It is worth noting that since the merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2001, Turner has lost billions in Time Warner stock and he is no longer with the company.) But overall the US audience shifted, as reflected in the federal election breakdown. The right wing of the political spectrum, as represented by the Republicans, won 51% of the popular vote, and the liberal wing 49%, most of which were votes going to the Democrats. The problem is that CNN had claimed the center of the electorate – where fewer Americans are positioned. The media audience either perceived themselves to be conservative and viewed Fox News, or as liberal, so they viewed a range of media outlets, including CNN and the Internet. The end result was that CNN was positioned in a declining part of the political spectrum as the center ground collapsed and audiences moved mainly to the right or to the left for Obama. In essence, the CNN network is now going through an identity crisis in terms of what it wants to be and where it wants to place itself in relation to its competitors.¹⁶ The polarizing effect of the elections hit CNN’s strategic position hard. Meanwhile Fox News delighted in its newfound audience niche and increasing ad rates. This has left CNN in a quagmire with few repositioning options – unless it makes a direct attack on Fox News by shifting its editorial slant to the right and thus risks losing the audience it has now.

The Second Gulf War: Embedded Journalists

War coverage took a different track during the Second Gulf War in Iraq. The US military, which had a legacy of hostility toward the media, decided to embed journalists in combat units across Iraq and on six warships in the area. Given that the US military had blamed the media for losing public support for the Vietnam War, that the 1983 invasion of Grenada and the 1989 war in Panama saw heavy control of the press, and that the First Gulf War had been largely limited to CNN’s coverage, it came as a surprise that the US military would allow hundreds of journalists, photographers, and camera crews to cover the war in 2003. Embedding news crews affects the tone and nature of the overall coverage. From the boot camp to the front lines, embeds quickly took on an air of camaraderie. They had to follow military guidelines and use military transportation. Overall the tone and slant of the stories and film footage shown in the US media were biased to the United States, and, to a lesser extent, those in the British media to the British. An empirical study of the coverage by embeds “revealed that embedded coverage of ‘Iraqi Freedom’ was more favorable in overall tone toward the military and in depiction of individual troops.”¹⁷ The authors conclude with a warning concerning the craft of objective journalism when they state:

However, for the journalism establishment, embedding embodies a “professionally treacherous” reef. Journalists get to cover combat operations close up, giving them the access to combat operations that they want. But, in the process, they lose perspective and, thus, sacrifice the idealized standard of reporter objectivity.¹⁸

The bias of the embeds was not unforeseen by the Pentagon, or they would not have allowed it. Many independent or unilateral journalists, who were likely to be more critical of the war effort and the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction, were keep out of Iraq by the US military and were forced to watch the war, likely on CNN, from neighboring Kuwait.

Finally, CNN was treated like any other network and had several embeds along with all the competing networks. CNN no longer had the virtual monopoly coverage it had enjoyed in the First Gulf War. In addition, the use of the Internet by reporters as well as soldiers also managed to outrun or to scoop the traditional media. (The phenomenon of blogging and tweeting is covered in Chapter 6.)

As of this writing, AT&T is seeking to purchase Time‐Warner assets for $85 billion; the purchase was approved by a federal judge in 2018. AT&T seeks to gain Warner properties and prime content, such as Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, and Turner assets including CNN. But the US Department of Justice is appealing the approval decision.

The BBC

The BBC is significant for two major reasons. The first is that it operates a global television service in direct competition with CNN and a host of other regional networks. Second, as the early public service, non‐commercial British radio network, the BBC was exported around the world as a media model to a vast number of British colonies. As a direct result, non‐commercial, government‐controlled broadcasting in the public interest was what millions listened to and then watched with the introduction of television. The commercial model with advertising did not come to many nations outside the United States until after World War II. And even then, it was introduced slowly and frequently with oppressive regulations, many favoring the public broadcasters.

Deutsche Welle

Deutsche Welle is the German online and worldwide radio and television broadcaster. Information is provided 24 hours a day, including up‐to‐date information on German and European domestic and foreign issues, as well as economic and financial trends focusing on the Frankfurt stock exchange and the euro. Deutsche Welle TV offers 24‐hour, commercial free service, which includes news, sports, and cultural affairs programming. It provides programming in German, Arabic, English, and Spanish.

Deutsche Welle began with short‐wave radio transmissions in May 1953, and it is financed mainly with German government funds. In April 1992 Deutsche Welle TV began transmission and was then on air 14 hours a day. Deutsche Welle TV is now carried by cable systems throughout Europe and is rebroadcast in many parts of the world. Deutsche Welle has also set up Internet services in order to compete in the public affairs arena with the BBC, CNN, and Voice of America. Since its inception, Deutsche Welle has received substantial German government support. But with the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany, political support and federal government funding became problematic. In the 1990s it had a staff of 2200, which has now been reduced to 1200. Almost all public broadcasters across Europe have been subject to public funding cuts.

Finally, Deutsche Welle is offering an innovative master’s degree in media studies, which focuses on training staff from peripheral regions with a hands‐on and intercultural approaches.

Euronews

In 1993 the European Union established its own transnational news network known as Euronews. It is headquartered in France and broadcasts television news in eight languages, including Russian and Arabic. The impetus to create this trans‐European television news network was almost a direct result of CNN’s coverage of the First Gulf War. The European networks were either nowhere to be found in Baghdad at the beginning of the war, or as the war progressed found themselves increasingly relying on CNN’s coverage to follow the action. The US military kept foreign networks away from the battles. In response, 18 European public broadcasters, including France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and Greece, put up substantial funding to establish Euronews. In addition to government subsidies, Euronews accepts commercial advertising. Spain pulled out in 2008 in order to support the Spanish international network. Another notably absent member of Euronews is Great Britain. Like CNN, the BBC is in direct competition for the Euronews audience (for more on Euronews, see Chapter 8).

Channel NewsAsia

A new Asian‐based news channel, Channel NewsAsia (CNA), began service in 2000. Like Euronews, which is attempting to bring a European perspective to European and global events, CNA is seeking to bring an Asian perspective on global news events to the Asian region. It is based in Singapore and has close government ties. CNA is seeking to compete with the major global news services such as CNN International, the BBC, and CNBC Asia. With an all‐Asian staff, it has 10 bureaus and about 150 journalists across Asia, more than the three English‐language all‐news networks combined. Like the BBC, CNA is attempting to serve a market of about 16 million households, whereas CNN International is the clear regional leader, with about 30 million subscribers. CNA is trying to appeal to the Asian demographic in hopes of attracting viewers from across the most populated region in the world by focusing on news by Asians and from an Asian editorial perspective. Some journalists and media critics are concerned about the undetermined role of the Singapore government on the status of CNA independence.

US Agency for Global Media (USAGM)

The US federal government created the United States Information Agency (USIA) during World War I. Its initial purpose was to coordinate federal international information and to counter negative foreign propaganda. USIA became an independent agency in 1953 and expanded its activities to include a broad range of international information, education initiatives, cultural exchanges, and media relations. In 1998, under the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act, USIA was essentially divided into two sections. Much of the public diplomacy and foreign exchange activities were relocated to the State Department. The International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) became a freestanding, separate agency at the same time to oversee all US, non‐military, international broadcasting services. In 1999 the USIA was disbanded altogether.

The activities transferred to the State Department currently include long‐standing programs that have an impact on media systems and journalists in other nations. For example, the College and University Affiliations Program (CUAP) seeks to establish relations between US universities and their foreign counterparts. Examples of programs include a Palestinian media center, a grant to a Jordanian university to develop distance learning, and a grant to the University of Chile to establish an environmental science research agenda. The US State Department also funded the Aegean Young Journalists program, which brings together Greek and Turkish journalists. Many of the programs and partnerships funded have similar activities such as workshops, study tours, internships, and a US‐based study tour. Another initiative is the Citizen Exchange Program (CEP), which brings both journalism professors and journalists from semiperipheral and peripheral nations to the United States for workshops and information exchanges. A goal of this program is to instill in delegates free‐press values so that, as their media systems are privatized or created, they will reflect the journalist values and practices of an open and democratic society. The 2016 creation of the USAGM was moved from the State department to an independent status.

Through the USAGM, the US federal government has substantial involvement in international broadcasting. It is responsible for all US non‐military international broadcasting services funded by the federal government. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) oversees five major broadcasting outlets, shown in Table 10.1. All of these services receive annual grants from the US federal government of over $750 million and has over 3500 employees across all its assets.

The end of the Cold War era has seen a noticeable shift in and questioning of the role of these federally funded global broadcasting services. In their initial years, these services were designed as US propaganda voices through which to present, in local languages around the world, the US foreign policy position, the ideology of fighting communism, and US political and free‐market economic values. Now there is a greater emphasis on promoting US commercial and export interests abroad instead of the hardline political rhetoric of the Cold War era. There is also a harsh take on all things Cuban by the Marti services.

Conclusions

The first decades of the twenty‐first century are witnessing significant and long‐term changes in global communication. The first was the rise of CNN, which began as a small ultra‐high frequency (UHF) station in Atlanta, Georgia, and rose to become the predominant global network for breaking news. CNN’s effectiveness and expansion were aided substantially by the introduction of small satellite earth stations capable of linking CNN’s corporate broadcasting center with journalists in any part of the world almost instantaneously. Whether the breaking news was occurring in a major urban center such as Paris or Beijing, or in a remote desert or isolated rural area in Asia, Iraq, or Kosovo, CNN was able, with a technician and a single reporter, to broadcast live.

CNN’s success also created a problem. As its role, model, influence, substantial advertising rates, and ability to broadcast major events grew, other nations became concerned that their own governments’ policies, including foreign policy, were being ignored or marginalized while CNN broadcast a primarily US perspective on international events. As a result, some nations started to develop alternatives to CNN. One of the most notable is the BBC. Although it is currently limited in terms of its reach, over time the BBC could become a major global broadcaster in the international television news arena as it once dominated the global radio networks. Euronews is a good example of a network created to present a pan‐European perspective on European and world news for Europeans. That was also the expectation of the French when they launched France 24.

Other interesting changes are the substantial growth of Arabic services by major stakeholders. These services have been developed for radio, television, and the Internet. Along with this, the focus of, and funds from, former communist countries are shifting to semiperipheral regions.

Initially many radio services, particularly those off‐shore, were based on short‐wave radio technology, which, thanks in particular to the Internet, is becoming obsolete. A more pressing issue is that of continuing financial support for these primarily government‐funded global media services. With the end of the Cold War and the decline in the fear of a nuclear attack, there has been a corresponding reduction in governments’ desire to fund global radio networks. All short‐wave global networks are feeling the stress of decreasing support, both politically and financially. For example, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s excellent foreign short‐wave service, Radio Canada International (RCI), was closed down during the 1990s as a result of budget cuts. Part of RCI’s budget was redirected to promote Canadian exports abroad. Other services have not fared as badly, but all are experiencing declining rather than expanding budgets. Some of these services, particularly the BBC and the Voice of America, are shifting attention to the possibility of using the Internet as a way of extending their audience reach and justifying government funding. Many are also soliciting external corporate advertising or corporate underwriting for selected programs.

A final point is that the major global news networks are based in core nations – CNN in the United States, the BBC in the United Kingdom, Deutsche Welle in Germany, and France 24 in France. These core‐based global television news systems are designed for major export markets around the world because the majority of the services are commercially based and seek to extend their commercial viability by attracting larger audiences with the appropriate demographics for their advertisers. So, these global systems have two basic audiences, one within the nations where the corporations are based and the other scattered around the world. Some of these systems are in remote villages and others are in major urban centers with potential audiences in the millions. With the expansion of cable systems and satellite technology, the potential for niche, particularly news or expat, networks were recognized early by major innovators and is now being mimicked by broadcasters on a global scale. But all global news networks present a core‐nation perspective on the news they cover, and they all cover news in peripheral regions only rarely and usually only when it is about a coup, civil war, an assassination, or a major disaster.

With the end of the Cold War, media relics such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty should be taken down like the Berlin Wall. Also, the Pentagon has begun a “deceptive” practice of creating foreign‐language websites which present only favorable “news” about what the United States is doing and leaving out statistics on civilian casualties. Manufactured stories and this kind of military public relations benefit neither American journalism nor foreign audiences.²²

On a positive note, the US State Department is establishing a new counter‐propaganda unit to create FM stations, expand mobile phone services, and train local journalists across Pakistan and Afghanistan. The unit seeks to counter the Taliban militants’ ability to win the war of words and images. Winning the war of capturing the hearts and minds is as important as winning the war on the ground. As the New York Times reported: “‘Concurrent with the insurgency is an information war,’ said Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who will direct the effort. ‘We are losing that war.’”²³

Why it took the Pentagon so long to recognize this problem illustrates the outdated thinking of US military leaders. The same New York Times piece points out that in the Taliban regions of Pakistan there are only four legal FM stations, while the militants run over 150 illegal stations. Making this new counter‐propaganda unit at the State Department a success will require not only substantial funds but also that the CIA, Pentagon, and the military on the ground do not undercut or challenge this new media effort.