NEW YORK (AP) — In 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster unfolded, Beth Knobel was attending graduate school and discovered something remarkable after leaving class. Television screens had been positioned throughout the building’s entrance area, all broadcasting CNN — the round-the-clock news network Ted Turner had established approximately five years prior, which was providing live coverage of the launch.
“Space shuttle missions had become routine by then, and the major broadcast networks had stopped providing coverage,” explains Knobel, who later worked as a CBS News correspondent during the 1990s and currently serves as a journalism instructor at Fordham University. “CNN continued broadcasting them. When the tragedy occurred, they were positioned to cover the story better than anyone else.”
According to Knobel, who now conducts courses on television’s most significant innovators, this incident exemplifies why Turner stands above all others — demonstrating an extraordinary understanding of news delivery that surpassed his contemporaries.
Turner’s passing occurs during challenging times for cable news, which faces declining audiences amid numerous media alternatives and widespread streaming options. CNN has experienced similar difficulties; shifts in the media landscape, financial pressures, and repeated editorial restructuring have transformed it significantly from Turner’s original creation.
However, this overlooks a crucial fact: Turner established the foundation.
“The term giant gets applied to individuals who don’t truly deserve it,” Knobel observes. “Ted Turner genuinely qualifies as a giant. He created continuous news broadcasting.”
Industry professionals struggled Wednesday to find adequate language describing Turner’s influence on news consumption habits. Veteran television analyst Robert Thompson characterized the situation as beyond exaggeration.
“Obituaries and overstatement frequently coincide,” stated Thompson, who directs Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. “However, no exaggeration applies here. Few developments in the 20th century transformed American politics, journalism, and civic participation as dramatically as establishing 24-hour cable news.”
Thompson includes one qualification: The genuine impact wouldn’t emerge until competitors adopted similar approaches. They eventually did. For an extended period, particularly throughout the 1990s, “CNN became synonymous with breaking news,” Thompson explains, “similar to how Kleenex represents facial tissues and Xerox means photocopying.”
Turner’s news legacy extends beyond the 24-hour format. Multiple experts emphasized his conceptualization of news as an international product.
Knobel remembers serving as CBS’s Moscow bureau chief in the early 1990s and observing CNN broadcasts on Kremlin television screens.
“This became their method for understanding global perspectives on Russia,” Knobel explains. Similar situations existed in other power centers worldwide. “International programming didn’t exist until Ted Turner declared, ‘I’m not only creating a new American channel, but many people globally will likely want to watch this news service.’”
These concepts have become so embedded that explaining their previous absence to younger generations proves difficult. During the 1970s, when Turner — an insomniac — first envisioned 24/7 news, late-night television viewing in many areas meant encountering static, test patterns, or American flag displays until approximately 6 a.m.
Frank Sesno, CNN’s former White House bureau chief and current George Washington University media professor, describes the “Walter Cronkite era” to students — when news arrived at scheduled times, delivered authoritatively during 30-minute programs (which had actually expanded from earlier 15-minute formats).
“My students have no knowledge of Ted Turner,” Sesno noted. “I explain this represented Walter Cronkite’s world. Ted Turner entered as an outsider, with CNN viewed as an upstart destined for failure.” This attitude produced the mocking nickname “Chicken Noodle News,” which circulated throughout the industry when Sesno joined the network in 1984.
“I possessed zero television experience when they hired me,” he recalls.
CNN wasn’t seeking celebrity anchors initially. The news itself was intended as the main attraction. Star personalities developed later.
CNN achieved notable success in October 1987, following the Challenger incident, during 18-month-old Jessica McClure’s rescue from a Texas well after a two-day ordeal. CNN provided coverage not only of the resolution but of gradual developments — commonplace today but unprecedented for television then.
Cornell University communication professor Brooke Erin Duffy identifies public interest in that story as pivotal for CNN, which broadcast the “extended waiting periods” and enabled viewers to check for regular updates.
The first Gulf War with Iraq marked when news fundamentals completely shifted. While other journalists departed Baghdad, CNN remained. With correspondents Bernard Shaw, John Holliman, and Peter Arnett reporting under siege from Baghdad’s al-Rashid Hotel, the network permanently altered war journalism.
Technology played a crucial role. CNN’s news leadership “approached Turner about an approaching war, requesting funding for coverage, and Ted Turner asked what they needed,” Knobel explained. “They used that funding to acquire satellite phone technology unavailable to competitors.” This enabled CNN to maintain broadcasts when communications infrastructure failed.
“As someone who competed against CNN for years at CBS, I can confirm CNN consistently maintained technological superiority over everyone else,” she stated, crediting Turner for providing his network that advantage.
The continuous broadcasting schedule also dramatically changed television news industry working conditions. Journalists increasingly faced expectations to “remain available constantly to satisfy public news appetite,” Duffy explained.
Following CNN’s success, numerous outlets adopted similar approaches. Increased competition for continuous content made timing even more valuable for breaking news.
“One consequence involves the competition for attention within the oversaturated media environment,” Duffy observed. “Time represents the primary currency in news media.”
