New chapter is written at CNN

Associated Press

NEW YORK – Most television executives do not routinely carve out time on the weekends to write scholarly works of history, but that’s part of the routine for Walter Isaacson, the new head of CNN.

Isaacson, the former Time magazine editor and Kissinger biographer, took the reins of CNN last month after 23 years at Time Inc. The network is in the midst of a major makeover and struggling to fend off Fox News, CNBC and other rivals in the cable news business.

For AOL Time Warner Inc., putting a print journalist in charge of CNN is part of an effort to better integrate the various parts of its sprawling media empire. In his most recent job as editorial director for Time Inc., Isaacson oversaw cooperation between Time’s magazines, CNN and AOL.

Like Benjamin Franklin, his latest biography subject, Isaacson is fond of shifting career tracks. He started out in newspapers and later led Time Warner’s early experiments on the Internet.

The Associated Press interviewed Isaacson last week, just as CNN was announcing plans for a new street-level TV studio in midtown Manhattan:

Q Would you like to have CNN have more of a New York identity?

A No. I think it’s good for CNN to have a dual center of gravity in Atlanta and New York, with places like Washington, and Los Angeles and London thrown in. But it’s good to have our newsgathering people coordinated in Atlanta because it gets us out of the somewhat insular Manhattan media mentality.

Q Some of your competitors have gained viewers by having a well-defined editorial voice. You and others here at CNN have said that you want to create more analytical programming and rely less on straight-ahead news reporting, but how do you do that without adopting a specific viewpoint of your own?

A I think that the ’90s were a period of very strong partisan and ideological bitterness that lent itself to a lot of angry people shouting on TV. I think that this decade under the Bush administration, the rhetoric is toned down a bit, and the partisan and ideological battles are not as bitter. So it will demand what CNN does best, which is good reporting, good journalism, smart analysts, interesting personalities but not necessarily more bitter shouting.

Q We can see your imprint on Time. How will viewers see your imprint on CNN?

A We want to broaden the definition of news so that it involves science and technology and the type of moral debates we discuss around the dinner table rather than simply things that are being discussed in Washington or other capitals. The goal should be to make the news smart but also fun and fascinating. … With almost any issue, you can figure out what people will be talking about around the watercooler or the Rotary meeting, and realize that those are intelligent discussions we should tap into.

Q The relaunch of CNN Headline News (on Aug. 6) has received some tough reviews. How do you feel about it?

A I have no doubt that CNN Headline News is really good. I have no doubt that a lot of old fogies are going to find it too busy for them, but already it’s drawing an enormous number of younger viewers. The goal isn’t to scare away older people and get younger people, but the goal is to have a type of news that appeals to our faster-paced world, and it clearly is doing that.

Q What has surprised you most about working in television?

A What surprises me sometimes is how quickly we can react. I can wander into the newsroom and make an offhand comment that the cloning controversy is interesting and within seven minutes there’s something on the air. Every morning at 8:30 and then at noon we talk about the news and 20 good ideas emerge, and by that evening I’ve seen them executed, which is pretty amazing to me.