CNN: Reporting The Future

Image credit: dyobmit via Flickr

Among Millennials there has been a lot of talk about the future of newspapers and journalism in general. Frankly, the decline of print media is frightening. With the introduction and explosion of social media it is so easy to disregard traditional journalism in favor of the citizen-journalism structure.

However, there seems to be one news outlet that completely understands the trends in journalism today and embraces them and uses them to their advantage: CNN, the first 24-hour news network that in its infancy was jokingly referred to as the “Chicken Noodle Network”. Today, it has become a power house of news attracting journalism’s most coveted audience – Gen Y.

CNN has embraced social media, mainly in the form of Twitter, to target Gen Y and give the fast, reliable news that we as a generation crave. While writing this article I created two Twitter searches. One was for CNN and the other for Fox News. The amount of tweets related to CNN were much greater and happening at a faster pace. Clearly, this is the news sources for Twitter users.

Not only that, but CNN branches out into many different Twitter handles to satisfy niches. There is the classic and omnipresent @CNN which has over 816,000 followers. Then there is @cnnbrk for breaking news and @cnni for international news. That is barely scratching the surface. Don’t forget about @HLNTV (or Headline News), another branch of CNN and all of their reporters and anchors like @wolfblitzercnn, @AndersonCooper and @AmanpourCNN. There are so many ways to communicate with the CNN brand on Twitter it’s sort of crazy. Each outlet provides different content and cross-promotes with other CNN-related Twitter users.

Other than utilizing Twitter, CNN has been facilitating citizen journalism with CNN’s iReport. If you have ever watched a newscast on CNN or even HLN, you know that they feature pictures and video from iReporters all across the globe. This way, if a CNN affiliate can’t actually be at the site of a breaking news story, someone will. It’s remarkable. Most news networks mock and laugh at non-journalists reporting news. CNN is fostering the growth of this remarkable trend in journalism today.

Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable also recently has begun as a weekly columnist for CNN. His column is all about technology and social networking. This clearly shows that CNN is taking new media seriously and utilizing non-journalists in another fashion.

CNN also underwent a redesign. The main is the inclusion of video. They also split up their site into three main sections: Home, Video and NewsPulse (still in its beta version). Their main goal is to integrate more multi-media on the site. With NewsPulse you can customize the news to exactly what you want to see. If you want to see more videos, read more technology-related news, NewsPulse makes it possible. CNN is making the traditional experience of reading the news much more personal and media-oriented.

CNN has always been a front-runner in terms of news networks. Now, they’re number 3 on the list of Virtue’s Top 100 Social Brands for 2009. They know exactly who is important to target and how to get to them. Gen Y is the future of news consumption. We want everything fast and efficient. CNN is giving us exactly what we want and they embrace new trends. Not only is CNN meant for Millennials, it’s meant for all news consumers.