Word: cnn
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...hardly an unmixed one. Unlike its much praised performance during the Persian Gulf war, CNN's pantyhose-to-towel coverage of the Smith rape trial was controversial. The all-news network pandered to tabloid tastes, critics complained, or ignored more "serious" news, or cut away too often for commercials, or invaded the victim's privacy, or tried to guard it too assiduously. Nonetheless, the trial illustrated the essence of CNN: the coverage was live, dramatic, exhausting, messy and irresistible...
...trial also proved to be a tricky test for the people who decide what mix of news CNN will beam to its global audience. As the network's impact has grown, those decisions have become more crucial. To the extent that the images CNN chooses to show -- Boris Yeltsin defying coup plotters or a reporter sifting through bomb damage in Baghdad -- are important in shaping people's attitudes and governments' policies, a handful of news executives in Atlanta are among the world's most influential journalists...
...Turner may be the only one who ever thought CNN could come so far so fast. When Turner first launched the upstart 24-hour news operation in 1980, under the guidance of its brilliant but volatile president Reese Schonfeld, it had a staff of 300 and a newsroom tucked into the basement of a converted country club. Technical flubs were common: on the very first hour of CNN's first day, a story about baseball star Reggie Jackson was cut short when the transmission from New York suddenly went dead...
...Today CNN has a staff of more than 1,700, a global reach in excess of 75 million homes and a budget that keeps growing while the three broadcast networks cut back. Its headquarters are spread over several floors in a hotel- and-shopping complex in downtown Atlanta, formerly called the Omni and now dubbed CNN Center. The network has established its credibility, and it makes money: a profit of $134 million in 1990 and most likely more...
...crucial decisions are still made in seat-of-the-pants fashion, chiefly by three top executives. The veteran of the trio is Ed Turner, a charter member of the CNN staff, who is probably best known (as news stories quoting him invariably point out) for not being related to owner Ted. As executive vice president in charge of newsgathering, Turner is responsible for CNN's worldwide network of 95 correspondents. He is the soul of CNN: serious, pragmatic, not flashy but fiercely competitive. "No, we don't throw money around like the networks," says Turner about CNN's relatively tightfisted...