The News. On TV 24/7. It gets old, we know, but when did it start?

In June this year CNN will haved been broadcasting 24 hours a day, 365 days a year 46 years. 

CNN is and was the world’s first 24-hour news network. When it launched on June 1, 1980, CNN promised something no other outlet had offered before, news whenever you wanted it. That promise reshaped journalism. It also transformed how Americans experienced war. 

The defining moment came in 1991 during the Gulf War. As bombs fell over Baghdad, CNN reporters Bernard Shaw, John Holliman, and Peter Arnett broadcast live from their hotel room. Viewers heard explosions in real time. They saw war unfold not in summaries or press briefings, but minute by minute, as it happened. 

It was the birth of modern war coverage, and it gave rise to what became known as the “CNN Effect,” where real-time media could influence public opinion and even foreign policy decisions. For the first time, world leaders and citizens were watching the same footage at the same time. The speed of reporting changed the stakes of global engagement. 

That shift was part of a longer story. 81 years ago, the world learned of the D-Day landings through newspaper headlines and live radio updates. CBS reporter George Hicks broadcast from a ship under fire, describing planes overhead and ships spread across the Channel. Millions heard the war as it happened, raw, urgent, and close to home. It was a breakthrough for wartime reporting, one that brought distant battles into living rooms across America. Regular updates from the front kept Americans at home informed. 

To my mind, the proliferation of 24/7 news channels does considerably more harm than good. Even local stations here in NoCen Florida broadcast all day every day on satellite feeds. it's noise - or should I say news - pollution and there's no need for it. Not when there's reruns of Barney Miller and Rawhide available on their own streaming channels.

 Juss' sayin'...  

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