A History and Rhetorical Study of 24-Hour Broadcast News in the United States

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 A History and Rhetorical Study of 24-Hour Broadcast News in the United States
History  History   History  History   History  History   History  History   History  
The husband and wife team of Dave Walker and Lois Hart co-anchor CNN's first broadcast on June 1, 1980.  
// Cotten Alston for CNN
On Sunday, June 1, 1980, at 6:00 p.m. est, Ted Turner launched CNN with a staff of 300 employees from their Atlanta office headquarters. Upon launching, CNN became the first all-news television network in the United States, creating a paradigm of news that continues to influence politics and American culture today — 24 hour news.

Ten years earlier,  in 1970, political consultant Roger Ailes had another vision of how news could operate within American politics. Against the backdrop of fading support and scandal in the Nixon administration, Ailes and fellow Nixon aides dreamt up a television enterprise that would directly promote Republican politicians and ideology, capable of shifting American perception and opinion toward conservative ideals.
In a memo titled, “A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News” Ailes and Nixon officials expressed their vision directly, saying:
“For 200 years the newspaper front page dominated public thinking. 
In the last 20 years that picture has changed. Today, television news is watched more often 
than people read newspapers, 
than people listen to radio. 
than people read or gather any other form of communication. 
The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit—watch—listen. 
The thinking is done for you.”
In the following years Ailes would try to realize this idea, initially teaming up with Joseph Coors — the beer magnate and funder of ultra-conservative institutions — in a project that would ultimately fail after dwindling funding and an understanding of cable news that was still in its infancy.

A 28 years old Roger Ailes sits with Richard Nixon in the Oval Office 
// Richard Nixon Foundation

“A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News” 
// The Ailes Files, Internet Archives


But Ailes remained undeterred, and in 1996, following more than decade of 24-hour news success at CNN and financial backing from Rupert Murdoch, Ailes launched Fox News. The network combined traditional news reporting with strong, opinion-driven programming that leaned heavily on conservative viewpoints. 

Roger Ailes at a Press Conference
// AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)
Driven by the ideas he developed twenty years earlier, Ailes understood that television was not just about delivering the news, but about creating a compelling narrative that resonated with viewers. Fox News quickly grew into a powerhouse, attracting a large conservative audience that felt alienated by other mainstream media.

In the intervening three decades, Fox has solidified its role in American society and politics. It continues to frame political issues through a conservative lens, reinforcing the GOP’s agenda while providing a shared rhetorical basis for its viewers to talk about contentious political topics — While on the other side of the aisle, CNN has moved further left, providing a liberal counterpoint. 
It’s far from a novel idea that American political polarization has been driven by these two powerhouses of media, but a closer look at rhetorical use offers a deeper understanding of how each network develops, sustains and frames political opinion around key issues.

Rhetorical Analysis   Rhetorical Analysis    Rhetorical Analysis   Rhetorical Analysis    Rhetorical Analysis   
The methodology began with a Pew Research survey conducted between August and September 2024, which identified the top ten issues for voters in the upcoming presidential election. These issues—Immigration, Economy, Racial Inequality, Crime, Supreme Court Appointments, Climate Change, Abortion, Healthcare, Gun Policy, and Foreign Policy—were then analyzed using the GDELT TV Explorer. A tool that collects and summarizes the frequency of specific terms in broadcast television news coverage, drawing on data from the Internet Archive’s Television News Archive, powered by the TV 2.0 API.
Immigration and Crime Top the Ranks in Most Commonly
Mentioned 2024 Election Topics—Especially on Fox


Source:
GDELT TV Explorer & Pew Research StudyThe right side of the chart indicates a higher frequency of mentions, while the left side represents fewer mentions, based on data from broadcast news networks spanning January 2020 to October 2024.