>> News channels were always like this. We just have the internet to cross check now.
CNN was not in the beginning. They were a scrappy news channel that came to prominence with real reporting (most notably in the Iraq war). They got corrupted once it was clear they could not be ignored.
News sources have probably always had bias, but it was never such blatant characature back in the day.
Anecdotally, (and I am American) it was also somewhere between the Gulf War and the OJ Simpson trial that cable changed from some exotic thing that rich people paid for to something a lot of your friends had.
Bernard Shaw and a couple of other reporters from what I remember. I distinctly recall tuning in a few minutes after things started and listening to them hide in the hotel room as Iraqi security started to clear the hotel that all of the reporters were staying in at the time.
CNN launched in 1980.
The Gulf war was in 1990.
Larry King Live premiered on CNN in 1985.
CNN has long been a mix of news and opinion, like all news media ever. That’s why media exists: to push facts and interpretations of those facts.
Media is not a charity: William Randolph Hearst and Ted Turner want something for their money: they want to control the narrative.
It has always been blatant: you just haven’t been paying attention. Hearst started a war! He was such a reviled figure that one of the greatest movies ever made was made to dunk on him.
I distinctly remember when CNN jumped the shark. It was during the 2000 election coverage when they started introducing all these computer generated graphics.
I remember their coverage of Monica Lewinsky and related issues being pretty annoying, along with the rest of the networks.
I remember when Clinton tried to attack claimed al Qaeda infrastructure after the embassy bombings and made a speech about bin Laden (the first time I heard the name) they asked if it was to distract from Monica. Compared it to the film Wag the Dog.
CNN was not in the beginning. They were a scrappy news channel that came to prominence with real reporting (most notably in the Iraq war). They got corrupted once it was clear they could not be ignored.
News sources have probably always had bias, but it was never such blatant characature back in the day.