Television news has undergone remarkable transformations in the last seven decades. Beginning with the “Camel News Caravan” with John Cameron Swayze in 1948, evening newscasts drew tens of millions of viewers nightly and expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes in the year after Walter Cronkite became the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in 1962.
With the launch of CNN in 1980, TV news expanded to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week—and a new era in television journalism was born. Americans no longer had to wait until 6:30 p.m. to get their TV news but could tune in any time to find out what was happening all over the world. In 1996, TV news changed once again with the launch of two new 24/7 cable channels: MSNBC and, 6 months later, the Fox News Channel, which introduced a directly partisan approach to news coverage that would have enormous implications for American political life.
Media historian Brian Rose looks at these sweeping changes and examines the impact—both good and bad—of television journalism over the last 70-plus years.
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