See It Again: The Work of History in the 1990s American Cable Television News Genre

265 Pages·2015·11.3 MB·English

UCLA
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Title
See It Again: The Work of History in the 1990s American Cable Television News Genre
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https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mn6h8r1
Author
Sharma, Sudeep
Publication Date
2015

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See It Again: The Work of History in the 1990s American Cable Television News Genre

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of
Philosophy in Film and Television

by

Sudeep Sharma

2015
© Copyright by
Sudeep Sharma
2015
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

See It Again: The Work of History and the 1990s American Cable Television News Genre

by

Sudeep Sharma
Doctor of Philosophy in Cinema and Media Studies
University of California, Los Angeles, 2015
Professor John T. Caldwell, Chair

American cable television news has emerged as one of the most important and contested
media genres in the United States over the past three and a half decades. In this dissertation, I
examine cable television news in the 1990s, a transformative period of industrial and cultural
change, and consider how the continuous, 24-hour coverage of the genre represented,
constructed and problematized “history”. By packaging history as a programming form that I
term “historicizing news programs (HNPs)” at the beginning of the decade, 24-hour cable
television news created a framework that brought cohesion to its continual coverage and brought
together viewers, producers, events and time into a coherent whole. By the end of the decade,
political and technological pressures lead to fundamental changes in the workings of the cable
television news genre and its use of history. My dissertation is one of the first to consider 1990s
television news from a critical humanities/media studies perspective and will help open new
avenues for scholars to think about genre and its relationship to history.
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First, I explain how my study of television news is in the tradition of media studies and
its views of historiography in contrast to journalism studies, communication studies and other
scholarship that focus on television as primarily a technology of instantaneity and presence.
Using textual, discourse, and institutional analysis of written and visual texts and other artifacts,
I then provide four in-depth case studies for how depictions of history worked industrially and
culturally during the 1990s. The first looks at the rise of HNPs following the 1991 Gulf War on
CNN. The second shows the spread of HNPs to sports cable television news and how they
provided a point of contrast with the liveness that defined the genre. The last two case studies
show the shift in how history was performed by cable television news, with the third explaining
the politicization of history due to the political conflict of the Culture Wars and the fourth the
outsourcing of history into the “cloud” due to the disruptive force of new media technologies.

Keywords:

CABLE TELEVISION NEWS; TELEVISION NEWS; CABLE PROGRAMMING; EDWARD
MURROW; CBS; CNN; ESPN; C-SPAN; AMERICAN HISTORY; TED TURNER; GULF
WAR; 24-HOUR NEWS CYCLE; ESPN; SPORTS TELEVISION; CULTURE WARS; FOX
NEWS; MSNBC; COLD WAR; WORLD AT WAR; NEW MEDIA; CLINTON
IMPEACHMENT; Y2K; 9/11; THE DAILY SHOW; COMEDY CENTRAL; JON STEWART;
DOCUMENTARY; 1990s; HISTORIOGRAPHY; TELEVISION HISTORY

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The dissertation of Sudeep Sharma is approved.

Allyson Field

Purnima Mankekar

Douglas Kellner

John T. Caldwell, Chair

University of California, Los Angeles

2015

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Dedicated to Teshome Gabriel

Teacher, Scholar, Friend
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………...1
REMEDIAL HISTORIOGRAPHY, TELEVISION NEWS SUPRAGENRE AND THE
MURROW MYTH

WHY CABLE TELEVISION NEWS, WHY THE 1990S, WHY THIS PROJECT
REMEDIAL HISTORIOGRAPHY
BLINDSPOTS IN JOURNALISM STUDIES AND COMMUNICATION
MEDIA STUDIES HISTORIOGRAPHIES
Text
Form
Nation
DEFINING TERMS
Television news as supragenre / Cable television news as genre
Subgenre
Genre and history: Murrow Myth as ur-text
THE MURROW MYTH
THE EMERGENCE: MURROW DURING THE BLITZ
MCCARTHY AND MURROW: PERSON TO PERSON
PROTO HISTORICIZING NEWS PROGRAM: FORD 50TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW
MURROW IN THE 21ST CENTURY: 1958 RTNDA SPEECH AND GOOD NIGHT AND
GOOD LUCK

CHAPTER ONE………………………………………………………………………………..44
“A LOOK BACK”: CNN AND THE RISE OF THE HISTORICIZING NEWS
PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION
EARLY CABLE TELEVISION AND BLUE SKY
POST BLUE SKY: THE FIRST, TOP DOWN BEGINNING OF CABLE TELEVISION
TED TURNER AND THE FOUNDING OF CNN: THE SECOND, GROUND UP BIRTH OF
CABLE TELEVISION
PADDY SCANNELL ON EVERYDAY HISTORICALITY AND CNN
HISTORICIZING NEWS PROGRAMS AND BIG HISTORY
CNN COVERAGE OF DESERT SHIELD / DESERT STORM
HISTORICIZING NEWS PROGRAMS – A LOOK BACK
CONCLUSION

CHAPTER TWO……………………………………………………………………………….87
“AT LONG LAST, HAVE YOU NO DYNASTY?”: ESPN AND THE HISTORICIZING
NEWS PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND: SPORTS NEWS
WHY ESPN FOR THIS STUDY: CATASTROPHE AND LIVENESS
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FORMATION OF ESPN
ESPN’S FIRST BROADCAST
SPORTSCENTER TENTH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
ESPN BOOM IN THE 1990’S
HISTORICIZING NEWS PROGRAMS IN SPORTS: ESPY’S AND JIMMY VALVANO
HISTORICIZING NEWS PROGRAMS IN SPORTS: SPORTSCENTURY
SportsCenter of the Decade
Top 50 Athletes of the 20th Century and Rankings
CONCLUSION

CHAPTER THREE – “THE RIGHT SIDE WON”: CNN’S COLD WAR AND THE
POLITICIZATION OF THE HISTORICIZING NEWS
PROGRAM…………………………………………………………………………………....131
INTRODUCTION
THE LATE HISTORICIZING NEWS PROGRAM
CULTURE WARS
RIGHTWING CRITIQUE OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA
FOX NEWS
TED TURNER AND CNN
THE WORLD AT WAR
CNN’S COLD WAR
Red Spring and Postscript
CONSERVATIVE CRITIQUE OF CNN’S COLD WAR
WHY COLD WAR
CONCLUSION

CHAPTER FOUR……………………………………………………………………….…….169
“SERIOUS NEWS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE BORING”: NEW MEDIA, THE “END OF
HISTORY” AND SUMMER 2001 CABLE TELEVISION NEWS

INTRODUCTION
HISTORICIZING NEWS PROGRAMS IN THE CLOUD
THE END OF HISTORY
C-SPAN AS PROTO-INTERNET TELEVISION NEWS
SHATTERED GLASS
LATE 1990’S SELF-AWARE HISTORIC PROGRAMMING – THE CLINTON
IMPEACHMENT
Y2K BUG
2000 ELECTION CONFLICT
SUMMER 2001
Tabloid: Chandra Levy disappearance
Stunt programming: “Summer of the Shark”
Politics: Stem Cell Research
CONCLUSION

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CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………..213

BRIEF SUMMATION
DEATH OF IRONY AND THE SERIOUSNESS OF FAKE NEWS
THE MURROW MOMENT: STEWART THE TRUTH TELLER ON CROSSFIRE
WITHER HISTORY IN TELEVISION HISTORY

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES…………………………………………………………..…224

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