There’s no scarcity of opinion in in the present day’s information media panorama. That’s why CNN head Mark Thompson is leaning into an ethos shared by classic Dragnet detective Sgt. Joe Friday: “Simply the information, ma’am.”
“We see ourselves as a information community first, moderately than opinion,” Thompson instructed ADWEEK forward of taking the stage at Warner Bros. Discovery’s Might 15 TV upfront week presentation, the place he’ll share heretofore intently held particulars about CNN’s future.
“We’re speaking about completely factual reporting, in addition to context, depth and dialogue,” continued Thompson, who beforehand reworked such venerable information establishments as The New York Occasions and the BBC. “Folks come to CNN for information moderately than countless opinionated arguments—they arrive to us once they need to discover out what’s taking place.”
And that emphasis on factual reporting gained’t be restricted to what’s taking place in America’s ever-volatile political realm.
“Our model stands for information, however we need to outline information fairly broadly,” Thompson emphasised. “Politics is essential, however so far as we’re involved, the climate is information. Well being is information. Sports activities, leisure and enterprise are information. What we’re doing isn’t just ensuring that we’re masking all of these areas, but additionally packaging them and branding them throughout our linear and digital platforms.”
Vertical integration
To enrich that broad view of reports, CNN will launch new branded verticals in every of these aforementioned protection areas that may seamlessly translate from medium to medium, be it the tv community and CNN.com or a podcast and a cell software. Thompson factors to CNN’s 5 Issues franchise—which now encompasses a e-newsletter, a podcast and an on-demand streaming sequence on CNN Max—for example of that form of profitable cross-platform execution.
“We’re more and more going to consider all of our platforms as expressions of the CNN model and CNN values,” he defined. “When we’ve got a proposition like 5 Issues, you’ll see us attempting to specific that throughout all of these platforms in numerous methods and in addition attempting to create these franchises round specific topic areas like enterprise, sports activities, leisure, local weather and well being.”
