I'm not even American, but CNN coverage of the 1990-91 Gulf War really put them on the radar. The whole Middle East watched CNN Live coverage.

Just in the past week someone posted what appears to be control room video from CNN in 1991 (and others): https://youtu.be/5CxWCWhs-uc - start of the US air war, https://youtu.be/RpClxMvpEmM - second hour.

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.

Dude had a cameo in the first Ghostbusters. Larry King was already a known entity. There's a reason CNN picked him up.

Never mind, I got mixed up, you're talking about just CNN.

He also went with Snoop to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and did not appear to enjoy the food.

I remember there was this CNN guy in Bagdad that reported the air attacks live from there. That definitely put them on the map.

Al Franken and his One Man Mobile Uplink!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHKiVkeup2o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCwYfNo3BGU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxyMnhqhEII

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.

Just remembered: Peter Arnett. He was the only one who had a phone line out from Iraq during the first attacks.

Wolf Blitzer, IIRC, did that.

Wolf Blitzer was the CNN reporter at the Pentagon that day. He appears in the first video linked above.

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.