CNN is breaking with an old habit that has defined cable news for decades.
Erin Burnett, Jim Sciutto and Don Lemon are still talking about the latest CNN headlines, but their new boss thinks they can do it without the visual aid of a longtime TV news crutch: a block of graphics on the screen indicating to viewers that they are listening. on “Breaking News”.
The words appear frequently during all types of news broadcasts, whether cable, afternoon or morning, and even when the news is not being reported. Chris Licht, installed by Warner Bros. Discovery as CNN’s new president and CEO thinks the chyron needs a break.
“It has become such a staple across all channels and networks that its impact has been lost on the audience,” he told CNN employees in a memo last week. “This is a great starting point for trying to make ‘Breaking News’ mean something BIG is happening!” Licht added.
The move puts a bigger focus on the TV news screen, or what can be seen on it. In decades past, Walter Cronkite’s dispatches were enough to hold viewers’ attention, but the advent of 24-hour cable news networks changed the equation. Audiences can now focus on zippers at the bottom of the screen and pop-ups in the corner previewing other programs or segments, even if the anchor is shouting about a war or natural disaster.
In 2018, MSNBC removed the scrolling news ticker from the bottom of the screen, relying instead on multiple stationary chiron headlines. Executives at the time felt too many graphics on the screen distracted from real journalism. In 2020, however, the ticker returned, briefly. Neither MSNBC nor Fox News Channel use a scrolling ticker in their daytime news programming these days.
“I think news executives used the ‘breaking news’ banner a lot because they think the more dramatic presentation will get more viewers,” says Mark Feldstein, Richard Eaton’s director of broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. “But viewers quickly pick up on that hype and learn to tune it out.”
He adds: “When everything is breaking news, nothing is breaking news.”
