History As It Happens

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

ON THE NIGHT THAT THE bombs began to fall on Baghdad, Gilbert Lavoie, press secretary to Canada's Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, telephoned his counterpart Marlin Fitzwater at the White House. "Marlin said, 'Hi, what are you doing?' " Lavoie recalls, "and I said, 'I'm doing the same thing you are -- watching CNN.' "

So was virtually every other senior official in virtually every government. In that respect, at least, the night of Jan. 16, 1991, was actually rather ordinary. From Rome to Riyadh, London to Lagos, Beijing to Buenos Aires, Cable News Network is on more or less continuously in the suites of a vast array of chiefs of state and foreign ministers. It has become the common frame of reference for the world's power elite. Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, George Bush and Saddam Hussein -- the headline sparring partners of the year just past -- are all alert watchers. What a computer message can accomplish within an office, CNN achieves around the clock, around the globe: it gives everyone the same information, the same basis for discussion, at the same moment. That change in communication has in turn affected journalism, intelligence gathering, economics, diplomacy and even, in the minds of some scholars, the very concept of what it is to be a nation.

Only a glint of thought to its founder, Ted Turner, a dozen years ago, CNN is now the world's most widely heeded news organization. British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd insists on staying only at hotels that carry the network. Iraqi ministers Tariq Aziz and Nizar Hamdoon would not so much as lower the volume of the nonstop CNN in the background while granting interviews to John Wallach, foreign affairs editor of the Hearst newspapers' Washington bureau -- not even, Wallach says, for the network's Hollywood Minute. When the name of his country was inadvertently omitted from a news quiz about nations participating in November's Middle East peace talks, Jordan's King Hussein was watching and was so irritated that he had palace officials immediately call CNN's Amman office to complain.

Singapore stockbrokers protested their government's politically inspired ban on private satellite dishes, arguing that access to instantaneous war news on CNN was vital for anticipating fluctuations in world financial markets. The terrorists who held Terry Anderson hostage in Lebanon used CNN as the vehicle to release a videotape of his appeal for help. CNN can be seen at the El Kabir Hotel in Tripoli, favored by Muammar Gaddafi's associates. It can also be seen at the Vatican, where Archbishop John Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, rises by 6 a.m. to watch and "know what to pray about."

CNN has become the fourth most respected brand name in the U.S., according to a recent poll of 2,000 people, ranked just behind the Disney parks, Kodak and Mercedes-Benz and ahead of Rolex, Levi's, IBM and AT&T. (ABC, NBC and CBS were not offered by the opinion seekers.) As a source of knowledge in turbulent times, CNN may be without peer. "Ted Turner is probably the pre- eminent publisher in America today, maybe in the world," says Don Hewitt, founding producer of 60 Minutes on CBS. "When there was a disaster, it used to be that people went to church and all held hands. Then television came along, and there was this wonderful feeling that while you were watching Walter Cronkite, millions of other Americans were sharing the emotional experience with you. Now the minute anything happens they all run to CNN and think, 'The whole world is sharing this experience with me.' "*

For most of the gulf war, CNN was the prime source of news, information and up-to-the-minute political intelligence for the U.S. government. President Bush is known to have said to other world leaders, "I learn more from CNN than I do from the CIA." That is apparently not a joke. Secretary of State James Baker and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney turned to CNN to find out what was happening in diplomacy or combat because its speed and accuracy in newsgathering outstripped the work of the National Military Intelligence Center and the CIA. Those agencies remain geared to cycling paperwork up through chains of command at a pace often too slow during a fast-breaking crisis.

President Kennedy had six days to ponder what to do before he went public about the Cuban missile crisis. During the gulf war, the White House rarely had six hours to respond and sometimes felt it did not have six minutes. In the face of this urgent need to know, whenever CIA Director William Webster received word via intelligence satellite that an Iraqi Scud missile had been launched, he would tell National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, "Turn on CNN to see where it lands."

Perhaps CNN's biggest impact has been on diplomacy. There, too, the stately march of paper via protocol has been supplanted by spontaneity and pragmatism. The public press conference has outstripped the private letter. No longer is the performance just for show, while the real deal is done behind closed % doors. CNN's reach makes it a kind of worldwide party line, allowing leaders to conduct a sort of conference call heard not only by the principals but also by their constituents across the planet. Says Richard Haass, a National Security Council aide to President Bush: "You end up hearing statements for the first time, not in diplomatic notes, but because you see a Foreign Minister on the TV screen. By television, I really mean CNN. It has turned out to be a very important information source."

When U.S. troops invaded Panama in December 1989, the Soviet Foreign Ministry read its condemnation to a CNN crew before passing it through diplomatic channels. During the buildup to the gulf war, Turkish President Turgut Ozal was watching a CNN telecast of a press conference and heard a reporter ask Bush if Ozal would cut off an oil pipeline into Iraq. Bush said he was about to ask Ozal that very question. Moments later, when the telephone rang, Ozal was able to tell Bush that he was expecting the call.

THE FINAL EFFORT AT A PEACEful settlement of the gulf war epitomized the transition from the old diplomacy to the new. Secretary of State Baker met for six hours with Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz but could not persuade him to accept a manila envelope containing a private letter from Bush to Saddam Hussein. As the meeting ended, both sides readied press conferences blaming each other. Aziz let it be known he would wait for Bush to appear, thus having the last word. White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater quickly telephoned CNN correspondent Charles Bierbauer. Tell your bosses in Atlanta and your man with Aziz in Geneva, said Fitzwater, that Aziz is going to have to speak first "if we have to wait until Christmas." Bush won. Says Fitzwater: "The whole thing took about five minutes to settle. CNN was the midwife on both ends."

CNN has also become a kind of global spotlight, forcing despotic governments to do their bloody deeds, if they dare, before a watching world. Sometimes they dare not, especially when CNN can reach even a relatively few citizens within the oppressed land and serve as a beacon of freedom. During the failed Soviet coup in August, as key state news organs were being taken over by supporters of coup leaders, Russian President Boris Yeltsin showed himself in public atop a tank to rally a crowd nearby -- and a far larger one throughout his nation. He knew that CNN might still be seen by about 100,000 Muscovites and thousands of residents in other cities, a tiny percentage of the population but enough to spread word of mouth that the battle for freedom was not lost. The image of a defiant Yeltsin sent the same signal to the rest of the world and heightened pressure on President Bush to denounce the coup. Historians will debate how much impact this televised imagery had on the outcome. But it is noteworthy that a diplomat representing one of the newly independent Baltic republics jubilantly called people at CNN days later and thanked them for helping to give his country its freedom.

The outcome is not always so positive. Although State Department insiders tell how spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler dragged Baker in to watch CNN footage of China's crackdown against protesters in Tiananmen Square, the only measurable political effect was to distance Baker a tad from the Chinese leadership. Says a senior official, discussing the bloodshed's being seen by the American people on CNN: "It demanded a solution we couldn't provide. We were powerless to make it stop."

In all these cases, many of the same gut-wrenching images could be seen on other networks. But CNN was apt to carry them first around the world and certainly to air them more frequently and at greater length. Moreover, the very existence of CNN has compelled rivals, inside and outside the U.S., to pursue more international news and air more of it live.

Among the most avid watchers of CNN, although they don't always like to admit it, are other journalists. In almost every major U.S. newsroom and in many elsewhere in the world, the channel is perpetually on and someone is watching, or at least glancing over frequently. Once upon a time, newspapers broke the news to the public. Then TV took over that role, and ever since, newspapers have tried to redefine themselves by becoming more analytical. Now, even most TV reporters try to pride themselves on doing a story analytically and in depth; it is a foregone conclusion that CNN will do the story first.

At many events it covers, from summits to celebrated trials, CNN itself becomes a major news source. During the Arab-Israeli peace conference in Madrid last November, where access was severely limited, nearly all of the 4,600 journalists had to follow the proceedings on CNN. A common temptation is to skip other reporting and just rehash what shows up on the screen. Sometimes even the most serious reporters are forced to rely on CNN's better access. As retired Air Force General Michael Dugan quipped about his work as military analyst for CBS, "What CBS did during the gulf war was watch CNN." The same might be said of most other broadcast and print news teams.

The appeal of CNN has inspired would-be imitators. Japan's NHK network explored creating a global channel but gave up when it projected the costs at $800 million a year. The British Broadcasting Corp. plunged ahead into the Asian market in a joint venture with Hong Kong's richest businessman, Li Kashing. Their satellite channel of news and soft features, one of five on the nascent STAR-TV system, is reaching 38 Asian nations that number half the world's population. But only about half a million households actually own satellites, while an indeterminate number of others get some part of the service through broadcast channels. The programming is already popular in India and other regions formerly a part of the British Empire, and it is scheduled to be offered later in Africa and even on CNN's home turf in North America; it already competes with CNN on a small scale in Europe. BBC officials say their new entry into the global-village sweepstakes offers more analysis, more authoritative opinion and a broader world view. CNN counters that it too has an international outlook, that its reporting resources are more extensive and that world audiences are keenly interested in the U.S., in every aspect from politics to popular culture. Another potential competitor is the still-evolving European Broadcast Union's news channel, taking programs from 10 member nations -- albeit without the advantages of a shared style or even a common language.

Within the U.S., so far the Big Three networks have struggled to keep up with CNN's newsgathering. But former anchor Cronkite is fretful: "What I fear is that in their straitened economic conditions, the networks will find CNN an excuse to shuck some of their own responsibilities. I can conceive that as the situation grows worse, the networks may say, 'The public is being served by CNN. We don't have to be there.' " That may already be true. For the 1992 presidential nominating conventions, only CNN has committed to gavel-to-gavel coverage.

"CNN has put a tremendous strain on the print press," says Thomas Winship, editor emeritus of the Boston Globe and a former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. "During the past five years, print has been clobbered by television and has generally failed to respond by emphasizing the analytic and investigative stories that TV cannot do so well." Jim Hoagland, a two-time Pulitzer prizewinner for his international coverage in the Washington Post, says, "The effect of CNN should be to persuade newspapers that the stenographic mode of reporting is obsolete, a real dinosaur. The simple news account of an event that much of our audience has already witnessed is no longer sufficient. We've got to shift to a more analytical mode or find the story that TV couldn't or didn't cover." The plight of newspapers in a video age has rarely been more vivid than during the early days of the gulf war and the Soviet leadership crisis. News columns looked as though they had been put together simply by watching CNN the night before. Analyses were interesting but often nearly 24 hours out of date and no longer relevant.

For some social theorists, CNN has become far more than a news medium. It is considered prime evidence for the evolution of McLuhan's borderless world. As corporations become multinational and free trade transcends tariffs, as Europe develops a single currency and other regions build spheres of economic cooperation, as pop culture and air travel and migration and, yes, television make the world psychologically smaller, these theorists contend that the concept of nationalism recedes. Says Joshua Meyrowitz, professor of communication at the University of New Hampshire: "Many of the things that define national sovereignty are fading. National sovereignty wasn't based only on power and barbed wire; it was based also on information control. Nations are losing control over informational borders because of CNN."

NOT EVERYONE LIKES CNN OR rates its influence so positively. U.S. conservatives have complained for years about its tolerant attitude toward erstwhile communist leaderships and other dictatorships, which they see as a cynical ploy to assist the network in doing business in those countries or as a boost to Turner's personal ambitions as a world peacemaker. These critics were appalled when Turner himself genially interviewed Fidel Castro. They were outraged when CNN left reporter Peter Arnett in place in Baghdad throughout the gulf war to convey the Iraqi point of view. Some business executives also perceive ardent environmentalism at CNN as another attitude encouraged, if not imposed, by the ecology-minded Turner. More liberal observers also question CNN's detachment. Washington Post columnist Hoagland describes the network as responsible and fair but adds, "It seems to me that they are probably more sensitive to host-government reaction than most journalistic organizations would be because of their approach of trying to be everywhere. And it seems to me that they lean over backward to carry what I think of often as non-news from countries where they clearly want to be in that market." For example, he cites reports on economic development from Central Europe that look like video press releases about new factories.

Scholars frequently belittle CNN for its unscholarly haste and supposed shallowness. In place of slowly mulled research from experts steeped in their field, CNN delivers raw news. It features live events, bulletins and studios full of talking heads, often with scant analysis. CNN came into being just as the Big Three American networks were moving away from their tradition of in- house experts, and the new network set the pace. CNN anchors are apt to be more trained in the mechanics of television than in the nuances of the many subjects they discuss. The reporting ranks number mostly workaday generalists.

CNN nonetheless does a good job on business, technology, entertainment and sports and capably covers the White House and U.S. politics. It can show great sensitivity in dealing with racial and multicultural conflict and is attuned to the concerns of women and gays. But its intellectual thinness is evident in the way it covers foreign affairs -- with the same tired emphasis on revolutions, wars, famines and disasters found in the traditional half-hour nightly network news shows, despite having the airtime to give a more rounded picture. An emphasis on events rather than analysis may, however, be a factor in CNN's broad appeal, argues G. Cleveland Wilhoit, professor of journalism at Indiana University and associate director of the university-wide Institute for Advanced Study. Says he: "Ideological critics of the media, left and right, agree on one thing -- that the press is too arrogant, too ready to tell people what to think. By its very structure, CNN is populist. It provides the raw materials of the story and lets the viewers form their own opinions."

The idea that CNN ought to be more analytic and instructive is not universally held among government and business leaders either. Many like the network just as it is. Sir Bernard Ingham used to be the combative press secretary to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, herself so big a fan of CNN that the network has made special arrangements for her to get it at ( her office. Says Ingham: "I don't think we want analysis. What we want is reporting of the facts. People can form their own judgments. There are too damn many journalists analyzing the news."

A great deal of the criticism of CNN from outside the U.S. seems to be rooted in general resentment of U.S. power and influence. The network is often labeled as the latest example of U.S. cultural imperialism. Longtime French TV news correspondent Christine Ockrent calls CNN "a U.S. channel with a global vocation, but which sees the world through an American prism." She is dismissive of its most widely discussed experiment, the weekly World Report, which airs unedited stories taken from TV channels around the world. Says Ockrent: "Asking Serbian television for its reading of the situation is not providing world news but merely the Serbian version. When CNN's footage is not homemade in the U.S., it is homemade in some other country. That's not being international."

BRAZIL'S FOREIGN MINISTER, Francisco Rezek, argues, however, that CNN's bias is toward values the world ought to emulate. "The network is markedly North American," he contends. "But while a universal stage, a truly global network, would be better, the American stage is the next best thing. There is no nation that is so varied, that has such a mixture of cultures and beliefs and that represents the two most important lessons of this century -- pluralist democracy and open, competitive economies. CNN helps strengthen democracy."

CNN officials readily acknowledge that despite having a round-the-clock schedule, the network does not explore most topics deeply. Apart from its frequently lively and sometimes informative talk shows, it remains a headline service, with a high percentage of repetition and overlap. One of its two U.S. cable channels, Headline News, offers an endlessly repeating half-hour loop of updated news, sports, economics and entertainment bulletins. The other, the original CNN, mixes news hours with other mass-appeal public-affairs formats. It does not aspire, in any hour of its 24 a day, to the highbrow.

Part of the reason CNN has survived its past economic travails is Turner's go-for-broke nervelessness. Part is having been, as Turner says, in the right place at the right time. Part is the corporate willingness to gamble. When CNN executive Ed ("No Relation") Turner was interviewed by owner Ted, the trickiest question was "Ed, are you a dreamer?" At nearly any other company, the correct answer would be no. At CNN, it is yes.

But perhaps the largest factor in CNN's prosperity is, paradoxically, sound business management. The network demonstrated to its fat rivals that news could be delivered much more cheaply. CNN's salaries were lower but its people were hungrier and harder working. It did not get trapped into make-work union rules. It pioneered the practice of cross training, in which employees must learn and perform multiple skills. It reduced the size of camera crews from four to two, a standard that is now emulated throughout the industry.

The most expensive thing CNN does is the most necessary to its survival: broadcasting live and at length from remote locations. Says London bureau chief David Feingold: "The whole idea of journalism is to be a witness." The network pioneered the use of costly "flyaway" satellite uplinks -- packages of technology that can be disassembled into suitcase-size components weighing less than 100 lbs. each and capable of being checked as luggage onto an ordinary passenger jet. The trick is not to let the technological capacity dominate the editors' news judgment, not to do a story simply because one can. Explains Paris bureau chief Peter Humi: "People expect CNN to have live coverage. With today's technology, live is easier to do, and it's sexy. Our aim is to get away from being a knee-jerk channel and put in a little thought and judgment."

In the style of the eminently quotable and confessional Ted Turner, the freewheeling and frankly told adventures of CNN have yielded entertaining books. Newly among them is Seven Days That Shook the World, a story of the Soviet coup that hit the stands in December, from CNN's corporate sibling, Turner Publishing, with photos by the Soviet agency TASS and an introduction by Hedrick Smith. Another recent book is the disjointed but richly anecdotal Live from Baghdad (Doubleday; $22), written by Robert Wiener, producer of CNN's wartime coverage from Iraq. Wiener's final words are "To broadcast, for the first time in history, live pictures to the entire world of a war in progress from behind enemy lines. Murrow would have loved it!"

Indeed, Edward R. Murrow, himself a wartime broadcaster from London rooftops, would have. And so did the whole watching world. The sense of shared experience is the vital starting place for building a consensus on every matter of global concern, from nuclear disarmament to environmental cleanup, from hunger to health care.

& What CNN viewers have seen in the past year is the awakening of a village consciousness, a sense that human beings are all connected and all in it together, wherever on the planet they may be. How else to explain Kenyans who lined up six-deep in front of electronics stores to watch footage of a war they had no soldiers fighting in? The full potential of the medium that televisionary Ted Turner bet the house on is just beginning to be realized. What we are seeing is not just the globalization of television but also, through television, the globalization of the globe.

FOOTNOTE: *CNN is owned by a consortium, in which Time Warner, TIME's parent company, has a 21.9% stake.

With reporting by Anne Constable/London, Michael Duffy/Washington and William Tynan/New York, with other bureaus