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CNN
February 3, 2001
BOB GARFIELD:
CNN's confiscated footage demonstrates just how powerful that network has become over the past decade. In fact, the protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989 helped put the fledgling service on the international media map.
Now CNN is undergoing what its chiefs call a radical transformation and what industry watchers are calling major surgery.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
Just two weeks ago, 400 CNN employees, a tenth of the work force, were laid off. It was the biggest cut in the company's twenty year history and included many CNN veterans. The cuts occurred as CNN became part of the Time Warner empire and as the world's first cable news network is losing viewers to upstart competitors like Fox. With both ratings and the budget sagging, CNN is seeking a face lift. From CNN's home city of Atlanta, Melinda Penn Codler reports.
WOMAN:
A recent memo to employees outlining planned changes claimed that quote "the new CNN will be scrappier." It was a deft choice of words because scrappy is the word that many CNN employees often used to describe the early years.
How scrappy was it? Well CNN may be part of America on Line's family now, but in the very lean early 1980s, just linking up on computer was discouraged.
MAN:
I mean there were times when we were told in writing by the management: don't dial in to the computer. Don't share information among yourselves cause it costs too much money to do that!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
Ralph Begleiter joined CNN in 1981, and until two years ago when he left he reported from around the world. Begleiter echoes many other CNN veterans who speak of a sense of mission early on, of having to prove that Ted Turner was on to something with his idea of 24 hour TV news -- of having to disprove the jibe that CNN stood for "chicken noodle news;" of having to prove themselves to audiences and colleagues.
CNN even had to go to court in 1982 to become part of the White House pool. Begleiter says that after 5 years of struggling for legitimacy, CNN by the mid-80s was starting to establish a niche for international news coverage from the Philippines to the Berlin Wall to the Persian Gulf.
But as much as it broke ground journalistically and earned its place, one challenge dogged CNN. The ratings that shot up when there was a crisis to cover plummeted after the dust cleared. Ralph Begleiter.
MAN:
When they know something's happening, they'll tune it in! What there isn't a place for is the idea that an all news television network is going to have blockbuster ratings every minute of every day! It just isn't going to happen, because I don't think the audience will ever grow. I think it will be driven by events.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
In the mid-90s, CNN tried to defy that thinking. Time Warner shareholders now owned Ted Turner's company and there were other cable news competitors gearing up. So CNN launched some heavily produced news magazines that it hoped viewers would make appointments to watch.
Three years ago CNN rolled out a nightly news magazine called Newsstand and debut'd with a scandal.
CNN NEWSSTAND CLIP
ANNOUNCER:
Tonight CNN and Time--
[MUSIC]
Valley of Death. The U.S. military and a top secret target: American defectors.
MAN:
I believe they were turncoats! I believe they were traitors!
ANNOUNCER:
The U.S. military and a top secret weapon.
MAN:
Nerve gas.
END CLIP
WOMAN:
Newsstand's very first report, Tailwinds, said that U.S. troops had sprayed sarin gas on Laotians and American soldiers during the Vietnam War. CNN had to issue a statement later that it had not journalistically proven the story. There was anger within the CNN ranks that in the search for ratings, one show sullied CNN's hard-won reputation for dependable news.
What's more, Newsstand did not deliver the viewers.
MAN:
CNN continued to do under a one rating --meaning one percent of the homes that it's available in.
WOMAN:
Phil Klore has covered CNN for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution for more than a decade.
MAN:
And I think CNN management eventually said look - if we're only going to do this fairly low level rating, then we might as well save money and not do these more expensive packaged documentary-style shows but instead do more seat of the pants stuff and spend a lot less money for the same amount of audience.
WOMAN:
Which is what CNN's competitors, Fox, MSNBC and CNBC were already doing. Instead of the CNN diet of newscasts and reporters tracking down and filing stories, these new cable networks relied more heavily on chat, and they were gaining on CNN's ratings. So CNN axed Newsstand and in recent months it has been sounding more like its cable competitors --talk, talk, talk.
[MUSIC]
Alongside long time programs like Crossfire and Larry King, Greta Van Sustern has a show and so does Wolf Blitzer. Jeff Greenfield is getting on.
There's also The Spin Room which spun out of the recent election where hosts trade left/right jabs and share e-mail.
SPIN ROOM CLIP
MAN:
Trying to funnel government money into churches.
MAN:
You're talking of course of WHOOFBACI -- that would be the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
MAN:
I think it's a very good name for it. Whenever I think of mixing religion and politics, I say to myself WHOOFBACI!
MAN:
WHOOFBACI!
MAN:
WHOOFBACI!
END CLIP
WOMAN:
Phil Klore calls Spin Room Crossfire with a whoopie cushion and says CNN seems to be heading somewhat toward what Fox is doing.
MAN:
More talk shows in prime time. Now [AHEMS] they are not nearly as far along as Fox is in terms of having that kind of loud, brash style. They're, they're still doing it in a CNN style, but they've obviously looked at what Fox is doing and what Fox is doing is working very well purely in terms of ratings.
WOMAN:
Indeed Fox outpaced CNN in some ratings during the Florida vote recount, and CNN's domination of cables news seems to be eroding. Some suggest that journalism may be eroding as well if one hears more from talking heads in a studio rather than reporters in the field.
Max Robbins of TV Guide says CNN is tarnishing its brand.
MAN:
If CNN tries to out-fox Fox by really being a, a TV version of talk radio, it's not going to work! Doesn't mean that they can't have-- a certain core group of personalities and do some talk television. But it has to be the most insightful, compelling talk television there is! They really need to be the blue chip news organization and go after that demographic.
WOMAN:
The way Robbins sees it, CNN could draw a loyal audience and advertisers by doing shows of the caliber of Nightline, Meet the Press and 60 Minutes. Even after the cutbacks in personnel, CNN does have more than 3900 employees - more, it likes to point out, than the news divisions of ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox combined.
Robbins says making a blue chip news operation CNN would take some vision, and he's not optimistic the challenge will be taken up.
MAN:
Being somewhat familiar with AOL's business, [LAUGHS] I don't think they have the real sou-- [LAUGHS] journalistic soul if you will, and I think it takes that, and I think it - it takes enough vision to say really great journalism can be great business.
WOMAN:
CNN says the recent layoffs came because of redundancies on staff and were not dictated by any promises made to Wall Street during the merger of AOL and Time Warner.
Nonetheless, there could be Wall Street pressures. Ralph Begleiter.
MAN:
CNN makes a lot of money every year! In the hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. Shareholders want more of that! They want a bigger share of it! They say don't spend it on more news gathering or news presentation or whatever -- put it in our pockets! I don't think that's illegitimate, but it does have an effect on the content of the news product!
WOMAN:
In another cost-saving move, CNN will equip its reporters with small cameras and lap top computers so they can shoot their own pictures and produce reports in the field, thus eliminating the need for large crews.
CNN does plan to open two more bureaus overseas, but you won't necessarily be seeing much of that coverage. Unless a crisis breaks out the CNN news channel in the U.S. has steered clear of the international reporting that helped make the network's name.
Bottom line some say is you should expect more live reporting and be on the lookout for more talking about the news and less actual gathering of it.
For On the Media, I'm Melinda Penkava in Atlanta.
[MUSIC]
copyright 2001 WNYC Radio
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