Case Study: Video, News, and the Emergence of CNN
One result of the Gulf War and its revolutionary media coverage was the emergence of the all-news cable television network CNN as a powerful and influential source of information in the United States and internationally as well. Taking full advantage of the technologies that allow instantaneous transmission of video signals such as satellites and portable "uplinks" that send signals to satellites by way of microwave link, CNN's popularity soared. Due to the incident's gradual escalation, CNN, like other major American networks, had the luxury of having reporters already stationed in the enemy capital before the allies attacked. This made possible a virtual live broadcast of the opening hours of the war. In fact, CNN's coverage of the opening of the conflict consisted of 17 straight hours of dramatic, radio-style narration of the attacks (Kamen, p. 350).
To put the impact the Gulf War's commencement had on the rise of CNN as a source of information to Americans, consider these numbers: In its 10 year history, CNN had very rarely captured more than one million viewers world-wide at any one time. During the Allied bombardment of Baghdad on January 16, CNN was reaching more than 10 million viewers in the United States alone (Kamen, p. 351). After the novelty of seeing our nation at war live wore off, the ratings for CNN settled into a five hundred percent increase over their prewar audience. After the war's conclusion, a Times-Mirror poll indicated that 61 percent of Americans felt that CNN had done the best job of reporting the war; the next highest total was ABC's 12 percent (Kamen, p. 356).
