14. CNN became a major player in 1991
For the first decade of its existence, CNN lagged behind the three major networks as a source for news. Most Americans preferred the known anchors and reporters of the three over the air news sources even as they too became available on cable systems. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the American response, Operation Desert Shield, a coalition of 35 nations, was deployed to Saudi Arabia. When Operation Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm beginning with the bombing raids of January 16, 1991, CNN had three reporters inside the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, at the al-Rashid hotel. The three, Peter Arnett, John Holliman, and Bernard Shaw, were able to send live reports, but no pictures, of the events they were seeing.
The reports on CNN were picked up by other news outlets and rebroadcast around the world, giving the network a credibility that it had up to then lacked in the eyes of many potential viewers. The reports from Baghdad were the first time that a major military action was reported to viewers as it happened, rather than subsequent to its occurrence, by reporters on the scene live. NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw asked questions of the trio while the bombing continued. The Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, admitted that he received information regarding the accuracy of some of the coalition bombing from the three CNN reporters. It was estimated that CNN’s scoop was watched by up to one billion viewers worldwide.