The Birth and Death of the 24-Hour News Channel by Mike Broemmel

Founded in 1980 by business mogul Ted Turner, CNN was one of two 24-hour news outfits that went into operation before and during the early years of the Ronald Reagan presidency. The other was SNC, the Satellite News Channel, a joint venture of ABC and Westinghouse, which launched in 1982 and died 18 months later.

Several years ago, I attended a luncheon hosted by the father of around-the-clock news, Ted Turner, to benefit bison preservation. The main course: bison steak. But, I digress.

I cut my teeth in the realm of media relations when CNN was in its infancy. By 1983, I was a low-ranking Munchkin in the White House Office of Media Relations. Our shop was charged with acting in the place of producers for television appearances by President Reagan.

The people responsible for crafting the television appearances of the President were well in-tune with the importance of the toddling 24-hour news organization in the form of CNN. A good deal of the proverbial message was tailored around the needs of CNN, even during its early years in business.

I think noting that one of the reasons Ronald Reagan was a highly successful President (winning reelection by the largest landslide in modern American history) was because his team understood how to play to CNN. So did President Reagan himself. Folks like to say Barack Obama is a great communicator. He is a good one. Bill Clinton is a great one. But, there is a reason why Ronald Reagan is still called The Great Communicator.

Thing is, throughout the Reagan era and throughout the presidencies of successors to The Gipper, CNN and its siblings in the form of Fox, MSNBC, and lesser-known others, mattered.

I watched the one and only news conference held by President-elect Donald Trump. As a person who cut his chops watching politicians like Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, and Tip O’Neill communicate with the media, I cringe when I see the President-elect perform before the press.

My initial response to the President-elect’s press conference was: “Good Christ, if President Reagan had done this, he would have been ridden out of town on the horse he came in with, together with Bonzo.” (For those of you younger folks who miss the reference, Trump isn’t the first President to have a past in the entertainment industry. President Reagan was a product of Hollywood, and once starred in a movie called Bedtime for Bonzo. Bonzo? He was a monkey.)

Lest anyone think I am equating the President-elect with the former-President, I do paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen in responding to Senator Dan Quayle during the Vice Presidential debate of the 1988 campaign season. “President-elect Trump, you’re no Ronald Reagan.”

Back to the Trump press conference. The President-elect went after CNN in an unabashed fashion. Truth be told, unhinged might be a more apt description.

The President-elect refused to take questions from the CNN pool reporter (unthinkable in the past). He called out CNN as a propagator of “fake news” (totally beyond anything imaginable at a press conference of any of Trump’s predecessors).

As an aside, CNN does appear to have been one of two entities that spewed out a story about the President-elect that appears to be groundless. The other entity is the routinely questionable BuzzFeed. Even MSNBC has taken CNN to task for not doing its due diligence.

And then I got it.

I was one of many folks who were around at the birth of CNN. And, now we are around to witness the death of CNN and its cohorts as the premier outlets for news and opinion in the United States.

I have heard more than a few communications experts state unequivocally the past two election cycles that television has lost its hegemony when it comes to politics, news, and associated communication. They are correct. 

Indeed, it dawned on me while watching the Trump news conference that since I abandoned watching any of the three 24-hour news networks before the election, I am far better informed.

Yes, the President-elect is brazen to the point of vulgarity. But, in this case, his assault on CNN is like kicking the dead horse that other Presidents would have been ridden out of town on. CNN and company, the 24-hour news networks, are no longer the behemoths of American political discourse they once were. In fact, CNN and company are barely relevant. 

No, the troika of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox will not disappear overnight. But, all three have now crossed the line into ever increasing irrelevance as reliable resources for news. The trend is irreversible. 

Despite its unseemliness, the President-elect’s assault on CNN at his press conference was not an attack on freedom of the press. Rather, it was an attack a thing that has such diminished relevance in the marketplace of news, opinion, ideas, and information, that a person like Trump can *spit* all over it without real consequence.