Created by Ted Turner in 1980 from the "Channel 17" station in Atlanta, the Cable News Network (CNN) is currently considered to be the most important television broadcasting network in the world that is dedicated to news coverage. With a presence that stretches across the globe to nearly every country, by means of cable or its own satellite transmissions, the CNN group is made up of six companies (CNN, CNN International, CNN Headline News, CNN Financial News, CNN/Sports Illustrated and, since last March, CNN in Spanish), in addition to other smaller stations, involvement in television networks from other countries, three World Wide Web (WWW) servers on the Internet, two radio networks and a journalistic partnership (CNN Newsource).

Its reporters have performed an outstanding labor and, in spite of the risks, they have always been present at the scene of breaking news. From the beginning, CNN was designed to be commensurate with the expansion of cable networks at a time when their potential and possibilities for development were still not understood. Its broadcast philosophy consists of treating international information as if it were local news by demonstrating its importance in the everyday lives of viewers. Another constant feature of the network is its frequent use of live connections from the place where news is happening. This made them, for example, the only television station attendant at the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

CNN has broken all-time records for numbers of viewers during events like the Stock Market´s "Black Monday" of 1987 and the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.