In 1980 I moved in as a tenant into a house in San Jose, CA that had cable TV. In June 1980 CNN cable news became a new channel covering news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This format had never been tried before.
On September 22, 1980 the Iran Iraq War started. CNN unlike the nightly news was eager to obtain film footage from the Persian Gulf. The way I recall it, on the 23rd or 24th, I was standing 5 feet in front of my TV watching reporting about this outbreak of war in the Persian Gulf, around 11 AM.
A reporter started showing a row of helicopters from right to left across a airstrip, with the video camera on the other side of this airstrip. This female reporter was saying “That Iraqi military aircraft were taking refuge on this airstrip in Oman” This brief report was probably only 30-to-60 seconds long. Now do to my last 6 years, on-and-off interest in newspaper articles on events like the fall of the Shaw of Iran, I new were Oman was located in the Persian Gulf. That Iraq was at the north end of the gulf, and Oman at the south end, nearly as close to Iran as Iraq. It did not make sense to me that helicopters would have travelled this distance, this location; it had been reporter that Jordan had allowed Iraqi military aircraft shelter when Iran started bombing Iraq airstrips.
This year I contacted CNN archives, filled out a request with the limited info listed above, at CNN archives application form. With a few emails back and forth I was told this video clip was probably in storage, that would not take much time to search that time period. However I was not ready to explain in what formats I would use this clip, and start the process of license fee with CNN for its use. Maybe if this blog gains interest on my printed articles sources, I will better understand the process and cost of obtaining this short video clip.
Next post will be about UPI short 4 paragraph article from October 6, 1980, published on page 3 of the San Jose Mercury News. It was this information that shed some knowledge on the story about that short CNN video clip from Oman.
4 replies on “CNN cable news starts in June 1980”
Id never understood the USA’s interest in that region. Most likely, money, that come from oil, what else?
The basic answer is yes. If you mean money is one way of measuring what is valuable. To understand “USA’s interest”, means learning nuances (I like the word nuance) on history, economics, energy platforms (such as coal versus oil), commerce, along with politics of European colonialism. I read a moderate amount about details, different interpretations of the facts, so that I can understand patterns and trends. I am not the person to pump out these complex details I leave that to experts. However here is a brief explanation. Oil first started becoming an “energy platform” around 1890’s, in Pennsylvania first basic drilling began in the 1850s. With oil replacing coal to create heat for steam engines, in the 1890’s the British colonial power came to the reality that both its large navy, and commercial fleets would need to move away from using coal (which Britain has a lot of) to oil which it has little of. The U.S. has always been able to find more oil one way of another, but the cost of each barrel of oil, money it takes to get the oil varies year to year. It was the European colonial powers that became interest in controlling the Middle East for commerce through the Suez canal between Egypt and Israel, but controlled by the British. It turns out that Saudi Arabia has large quantities of very low cost oil production, which Europe used much more than U.S. During World War II oil was important to all the world powers. Hitler invaded Russia in order to get oil fields in the south, Britain protected Egypt for the Suez canal, means to get oil. Japan attacked U.S. because U.S. had created pressure on Asian oil production to embargo oil to Japan because of its invasion of China. … Now this history ends up with my experiences of the Yom Kipper War in which the Middle East oil countries announced an embargo of oil to U.S. due to its support of Israel. For many different reasons this created a low supply of gasoline in 1973, causing gasoline lines which angered the American people. It is these events that moved the U.S. to become more interested in how Middle East oil affects the U.S. economy. However even then the U.S. had only a very small military (soldiers) presence in the Middle East, Then just before 1979 the Soviet Union (Russia) invaded Afghanistan and the U.S. panic that future movement could take place into Iran. So in 1979, the Carter Administration began plans for a Rapid Deployment Force to the Persian Gulf just in case it was needed, at least on paper. This is how “the USA’s interest in that region” came to be. Americans expect a daily normal of gasoline, electricity; and any long-term interruption get them mad, and looking for quick, easy fixes from government. Hope this helps answer your question, but sorry for the headache thinking through the overview of details. PJ
I didn’t know CNN has been around for three decades. Once you get permission from them, are you going to add that video clip to this article? #cs5711 #MiddleEasternNews #CNNArchives
If I find sufficient interest in the topic of this blog, yes; but permission means I sign a contract on how I use the video, such this blog, and how much money (not sure I believe hundreds of dollars) to pay for research, and using CNN’s film stock. PJ