CNN International

CNN International is the most watched global 24-hour news network. CNN International can be seen in more than 260 million television households in more than 200 countries and territories through a network of 38 satellites. Since September 1997, CNN International has been regionalized into five separate regions: CNN International Europe / Middle East / Africa, CNN International Asia Pacific, CNN International South Asia, CNN International Latin America and CNN International North America. The current managing director of CNN International is Tony Maddox.

The History
CNN International, in large part a result of Ted Turner's Globalization ideals, began transmissions on January 1, 1985 at first primarily broadcasting to American business travelers in hotels. The early studios in Atlanta were tucked away in various corners of the CNN Center, and the newsroom lacked even a digital clock. The vast majority of the network's programming originally consisted of simulcasts of the two domestic CNN channels (CNN/US and Headline News). In 1990, however, the amount of news programming produced by CNNI especially for international viewers increased significantly. A major new newsroom and studio complex was built in 1994, as CNN decided to compete against BBC World Service Television's news programming. CNNI emerged as an internationally oriented news channel, with staff members of various national backgrounds, even though some accusations of a pro-U.S. editorial bias persist. CNN International was awarded the Liberty Medal on July 4, 1997. Ted Turner, in accepting the medal on behalf of the network, said: "My idea was, we're just going to give people the facts... We didn't have to show liberty and democracy as good, and show socialism or totalitarianism as bad. If we just showed them both the way they were ... clearly everybody's going to choose liberty and democracy." In 1995, creative director Morgan Almeida defines a progressive re-branding strategy, to target CNNI's diverse global market, making the on-air look less overtly American and with a cleaner, simpler "international" aesthetic going forwards. The word International is replaced with a globe, and the new branding features numerous international locations filmed in time-lapse, channel idents created in CGI with Velvet Design in Munich, and a news brand designed with The Attik in New York.

The network undertook another major rebranding effort in 2006 overseen by the award winning creative vision of Mark Wright and London agency Kemistry. The ticker was replaced by a flipper, on-screen graphics were more unified and from October 2007 until August 2008, new studios were progressively rolled-out. However in January 1, 2009, CNN International adopted the "lower-thirds" CNN/US introduced a month earlier which were inspired by the clean modern design of the CNN I rebrand efforts. In the U.S., CNNI North America was distributed overnight and on weekends over the CNNfn financial channel, until that channel's demise in December 2004. It is now available as a standalone, full-time channel, usually as part of digital packages of cable operators including Time Warner Cable, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS, and Cox. Throughout January until September 2009, CNN International adapted more programs that became geared towards a primetime European audience with a few titled after CNN International personalities, most notably the interview program Amanpour. On September 21, 2009, the channel launched a new tagline "Go Beyond Borders", along with a new logo, and consolidated its general newscasts (World News, CNN Today, World News Asia, World News Europe and Your World Today) into a single newscast entitled World Report. The motto "Go Beyond Borders" emphasizes the international perspective that gives the information in this string and the plurality of the audiences. With this motto, CNN also refers to the various platforms to disseminate their contents. The new image was created between the Creativity and Marketing department and agency CNN Tooth & Nail. An important element of reform is the new evening program that adds the broadcast of programs Amanpour and World One. The makeover of CNN International has roused lots of criticisms on both the new prime time lineup and the redesigned graphics.

On January 11, 2009, the network launched a new production center: CNN Abu Dhabi based in United Arab Emirates. Then CNN International adapted half hour in its schedule with a new evening prime program for the Middle East viewers: Prism. Also from 2010 CNN International has launched new programs for evening-prime and improve its schedule. In 2011, the Domestic CNN has added to the CNN International schedule, the new talk show program Piers Morgan Tonight

Simulcasts between CNNI and CNN/US
CNNI simulcasts CNN/US newscasts whenever major events happen in the United States or around the world. Examples include the death and funeral of Ronald Reagan, the crash of Continental Airlines Flight 3407 in the Buffalo suburb of Clarence Center, the Hudson river plane landing, the attempted Christmas Day bombing of flight 253 and the death and memorial service of Michael Jackson as well as scheduled events such as US elections, Presidential inaugurations and the annual New Year's Eve ball drop from Times Square.

Likewise, CNN/US occasionally turns to CNNI newscasts, primarily when major international news breaks during overnight hours in the US. A notable case was during the death of Pope John Paul II and the aftermath of the London Underground bombings of July 7, 2005. CNN/US simulcast CNNI coverage of the death of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on the night after her assassination took place. Simulcasts also happened from November 27 to 29, 2008 due to the terror attacks in Mumbai, India, January 4, 2009 when Israel launched strikes into Gaza, and during the early hours of January 14, 2010 due to the earthquake in Haiti. During such simulcasts, CNN/US takes the CNNI feed – including ticker and the white DOG (which is used on CNNI to distinguish between CNN/US, which uses a black DOG).

Although dramatically scaled down since its early days, CNNI draws from feed of the main CNN channel for Piers Morgan Tonight which is also repeated twice daily, the (live) 9 a.m. hour of State of the Union with Candy Crowley, all editions of Anderson Cooper 360°, and some CNN Special Investigations Unit documentaries. Your Money, Erin Burnett Out Front and the Saturday edition of The Situation Room are not seen live on CNNI but are seen hours after their original broadcast.

Since mid-2011, the lower bar of CNNUS containing headlines has been covered and replaced by CNNI's lower bar except during AC360 when the former's lower bar is used to supplement its show.

From 2005 until early 2008, CNNI's Your World Today aired on CNN/US during the 12.00-13.00 ET timeslot. That program was initially pre-empted by Issue #1, a domestic personal finance program dealing with topics regarding the American economic, financial, and housing sectors and permanently replaced by another hour of CNN Newsroom in September 2008.

During the Atlanta tornado outbreak in March 2008, CNN/US and CNNI simulcasted coverage after Anderson Cooper 360° ended. That coverage ended around 12:40am EDT and the stations resumed their normal programming. Furthermore, the next day, with storms impending, CNN/US had to move onto CNNI's US news set and weather center to avoid water from possible flooding during the storms.

On January 17, 2011 CNN/US dropped its early morning rebroadcasts of ParkerSpitzer and Anderson Cooper 360° during the 4-6 a.m. ET time period, and began to simulcast World Business Today and World One from CNNI in those slots. Both newscasts the only programs broadcast entirely in the 4:3 picture format on CNN/US' standard-definition and high-definition feeds (the SD feed of CNN/US switched to a widescreen letterbox screen format on January 11, 2011). World One was dropped from CNN/US just a few months later to give way to an extra hour of American Morning.

Criticism
Former CNN Beijing and Tokyo bureau chief Rebecca MacKinnon described how the news-gathering priorities of CNN International were skewed to "produce stories and reports that would be of interest to CNN USA." Nevertheless, Jane Arraf, a former correspondent who was with the Council on Foreign Relations and is now a correspondent for NBC News based in Baghdad, noted that when she spoke on international affairs, CNN International would usually give her more airtime than CNN/US. For its own part, former CNN executive Eason Jordan has defended CNN International's "international" perspective, saying "No matter what CNN International does, as long as CNN's headquarters is in the United States people are going to say, well, it's an American service. But the reality is that it's an international service based in the United States, and we don't make any apologies about that."

CNN is one of the world's largest news organizations, and its international channel, CNN International is the leading international new channel in terms of viewer reach. Unlike the BBC and its network of reporters and bureaus, CNN International makes extensive use of affiliated reporters that are local to, and often directly affected by, the events they are reporting. The effect is a more immediate, less detached style of on-the-ground coverage. This has done little to stem criticism, largely from Middle Eastern nations, that CNN International reports news from a pro-American perspective. This is a marked contrast to domestic criticisms that often portray CNN as having a "liberal" or "anti-American" bias. In 2002, Honest Reporting spearheaded a campaign to expose CNN for pro-Palestinian bias, citing public remarks in which Ted Turner equated Palestinian suicide bombing with Israeli military strikes.

A Chinese website, anti-cnn.com, has accused CNN and western media in general of biased reporting against China, with the catch-phrase "Don't be so CNN" catching on in the Chinese mainstream as jokingly meaning "Don't be so biased". Pictures used by CNN are allegedly edited to have completely different meanings from the original ones. In addition, the channel was accused of largely ignoring pro-China voices during the Olympic Torch Relay in San Francisco.

On July 7, 2010, Octavia Nasr, senior Middle East editor and a CNN journalist for 20 years, was fired after she expressed admiration on her Twitter account for a liberal-minded Muslim cleric who had recently passed away, casting doubts on the company's commitment to freedom of speech.