Forty years ago today, I was rushing around inside the basement of a former country club trying to make sense of the utter chaos around me. One of those days that drop markers in your life.
Fortunately, the confusion wasn’t caused by conflict, it was because of a deadline.
Later that afternoon, we supposed to turn on the switch for the world’s first 24-hour news network. But there was a lot of work that had to be done regardless of the festivities beginning outside.
So we pushed on, slapped more glue onto wall coverings slipping under the heat of TV lights, hid the paint cans, tossed mounds of construction trash into the hallways and got ready for the cameras to go live.
At the appointed time, Cable News Network began covering the news - and making history.
At the time, however, it didn’t feel like we were making history, or covering the news very well. It felt like we were constantly on the verge of making complete fools of ourselves
Forty years ago today, CNN began with a very small group of determined television newspeople. Today, it’s obvious that work changed the entire world. None of them had any idea how profound the change would be. Pictured: CNN producers Tom Purdy, Jim Shepherd and Danielle Amos.
Like all startups, it was considerably less glamorous that it appeared to those first few cable viewers. As computers failed and satellite feeds failed to materialize, tempers flared, but deadlines never stopped. Our “bold adventure in journalism” often felt more like feeding a ravenous animal. Our lives were often measured in the minutes producers lacked in material to fill the time until the top of another hour.
There was no Google, no FaceTime, and video was transmitted by very expensive satellite feeds, not streamed from cellphones. Covering the world was tough enough for the “big networks” with nearly unlimited budgets. CNN’s budget was decidedly limited.
Where we lacked money, we substituted enthusiasm.
Forty years later, the “Big Three” are shadows of themselves. CNN, continues, although it lacks an essential to retain viewer trust: objectivity.
Seeing what’s happened over the past few months, and watching the media, in general, has covered it, I find wonder if things wouldn’t be far different, and possibly better, if we had failed.
Having failed at a big idea has never been something this country has condemned. One reason I left a better-paying, more stable job to join CNN was this advice given by a mentor: “no one who ever failed trying something great was ever considered a failure. It was just a setback on their way to success.”
As I saw protesters attacking the CNN headquarters building in Atlanta over the weekend, I couldn’t help but wonder if some of that violence wasn’t indirectly aimed at those of us who breathed life into the idea of a 24-hour news cycle.
“Feeding the news-beast” has led from sometimes erroneous reporting to downright shading of facts in order to give a story legs or “support a narrative”. Describing a protest march as “utterly peaceful” while a reporter dodges bottles being thrown at him pretty much blows the idea of dispassionately reporting the facts.
When you say something isn’t when it obviously is, you’re not reporting, you’re lying.
The world certainly doesn’t need more liars. We need more truth-tellers. But they’d better be prepared to dodge bottles as well.
We live in a time when narrative appears to be more important that fact. And everything appears to be trumped by emotion.
Today, I’m quietly celebrating the fortieth anniversary of some amazing friendships. They are as enduring as those made in foxholes.
But I’m not as gratified as I reflect on what we unknowingly set into motion.
Today, we could all use a little silence in the news-cycle.
—Jim Shepherd
