and its commitment to international coverage ex-
posed viewers to a global perspective. In 1989, the
world watched CNN as tanks rolled into Tiananmen
Square in China and the Berlin Wall came down.
Critics supported CNN’s coverage of international
news but condemned the lack of editorial process
when news was delivered instantaneously. The trend
toward instantaneous delivery continued, however,
as the evolution of the media landscape was shaped
both by CNN’s twenty-four-hour format and by its
strategies of crisis coverage.
The growth of cable television and of CNN were
inextricably linked. Cable provided CNN with the
means to reach a nationwide audience, and CNN
brought audiences to cable. By 1986, cable was in
48.7 percent of the television households in the
United States. Penetration of cable continued to
rise, and CNN, carried on basic cable, continued to
reach more households. As the first twenty-four-
hour cable news channel, CNN provided a model
for future competitors the Consumer News and
Business Channel (CNBC), the Microsoft-National
Broadcasting Company co-venture MSNBC, and the
Fox News Channel.
Further Reading
Auletta, Ken.Media Man: Ted Turner’s Improbable Em-
pire. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. A personal
portrait of Ted Turner.
___.Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost
Their Way. New York: Random House. 1991. De-
tails the factors that led to the precipitous decline
of broadcast network viewership. Excellent be-
hind-the-scenes descriptions.
Hack, Richard.Clash of the Titans: How the Unbridled
Ambition of Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch Has Cre-
ated Global Empires That Control What We Read and
Watch. Beverly Hills, Calif.: New Millenium Press.
- A thorough examination of two extraordi-
nary men. The book details the origins of CNN
and of the FOX Network.
Nancy Meyer
See also Berlin Wall; Cable television;Challenger
disaster; China and the United States; Libya bomb-
ing; Network anchors; Reagan assassination attempt;
Turner, Ted.
Cold Sunday
The Event A cold wave disrupts the lives of
millions of Americans
Date January 17, 1982
Place The United States from the Rocky
Mountains to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts
On Cold Sunday, extreme cold, heavy snowfall, and high
winds claimed lives and threatened the economic well-being
of the United States.
During the first two weeks of January, 1982, an ex-
tensive polar high-pressure system developed over
eastern Canada, as jet stream winds in the upper at-
mosphere shifted unusually far north before dip-
ping southward. Weather services predicted that a
vast accumulation of frigid air would move from
Canada into the Midwest and the Northeast. Resi-
dents of Chicago experienced the coldest day on
record on January 10, when thermometers regis-
tered−26 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds flowing above
the cold air as it passed over the Great Lakes caused
an extremely heavy snowfall in New York and Minne-
sota. The arctic air then rolled into a low-pressure
trough extending from Ontario to the Gulf of Mex-
ico, resulting in temperatures far below average
throughout that region. Heavy snows and hazardous
ice spread through parts of the South, the Ohio Val-
ley, and the Middle Atlantic states.
Temperatures fell even further on January 17, a
day that was dubbed “Cold Sunday” as a result of the
record-breaking cold. Hardest hit were cities near
the Great Lakes; they experienced temperatures
ranging from−26 degrees Fahrenheit in Milwaukee
to−52 degrees Fahrenheit in northern Minnesota.
The day’s high temperature in Philadelphia, zero
degrees Fahrenheit, proved to be the lowest maxi-
mum temperature ever recorded in the Delaware
Valley. Winds in Colorado reached hurricane force,
gusting up to 137 miles per hour.
During the cold wave, a series of accidents, power
outages, and other difficulties brought sections of
the country to a near standstill. In Chicago, fire-
fighters battled eight major fires on Cold Sunday,
their efforts hampered by frozen hydrants and ice-
filled hoses. Furnace fuel oil congealed in storage
tanks in the Midwest, even as natural gas consump-
tion peaked in six major eastern cities. High winds
and icy roads caused thousands of automobile acci-
dents, and commuters in New York, Boston, and222 Cold Sunday The Eighties in America