November 7, 2000: First it's Gore. Then it's Bush. Then it's too close to call. Gore won the popular vote. Bush won the electoral college vote. And a recount was called for in Florida where the lead had changed back and forth during the entire evening of counting. The legal maneuvering and the recounting continued until the Supreme Court said you have a right to vote, but you do not have a right to have your vote counted. That ended the counting, and Bush was the winner.

It did go on and on -- through November, into December -- and for the entire period WorldView gave way to Inside Politics for covering the events of the counting. Before November CNN was nothing if not flexible. WorldView would give way for the trial and tribulations of President Clinton, for presidential primaries and preparations for presidential debates, for a shooting in the capital or other breaking news. However, it had always come back. This time it did not. January 1, 2001 and no more WorldView. The flagship of global news broadcasting was no more.

Christiane Amanpour talking to Ken Auletta told the story this way.

"He's the last of the revolutionary and creative minds in our business," CNN's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, who joined the company in 1983, says. "The idea of twenty-four-hour news and global news is his creation. That's changed the world. It's changed people's relations with their governments. It's meant that governments can no longer crack down with impunity on protests. And Ted's business also had a human face and a moral face and a social face. It wasn't just about making money and building an empire." She adds, sadly, "He's been shunted aside." [Auletta, p. 141].

Turner's vision was of a global network.

Turner's own biases clearly infected CNN. It was an international network that slavishly covered the United Nations, from whose vocabulary, by Turner's dictate, the term "foreign news" was banished, that aired documentaries on subjects Turner cared about. [Auletta, p. 155]

There was no foreign news at CNN -- only global news. He joined Time Warner and then AOL Time Warner thinking he could lead on a wider stage, but he was shunted aside. The vision became the bottom line, and the bottom line for a global news network was not good enough for the corporate managers.

CNN still does news, and much of it is international. Headline News is news twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; it is "real news, real fast." But the global focus has slipped away. The network that was global in focus is now aspiring to an audience of Americans.

A network is not just broadcasting; it is also gathering the news to be broadcast. And CNN had worked very hard to be everywhere there was news. CNN got in by being even handed in its coverage -- mostly by setting up stories as XX said and YY said -- whoever the XX and YY might be.

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Then September 11, 2001. A few weeks after the destruction of the Twin Towers CNN presented itself with a new spirit. For 55 seconds they wrapped themselves in the American flag. No image and no person escaped the flag over and under. CNN is the network you can trust, they said. You can trust them if you fly the American flag. If not you may have lost some trust.

And they gave up their news gathering edge. Henceforth, nations of the world may think a second time before permitting CNN in to do the American version of their story.

A new bottom line. A new spirit. And the transformation of the global news network was complete.

....

Ken Auletta, The Lost Tycoon, The NewYorker, April 23 & 30, 2001.