Which English-speak media is more influential, CNN or BBC?

Guest   Sat Oct 11, 2008 3:49 pm GMT
Which English-speaking media is more influential internationally, CNN or BBC?
Guest   Sat Oct 11, 2008 6:00 pm GMT
ABC.
Johnny   Sat Oct 11, 2008 6:29 pm GMT
Influential for who? And where? How about MTV?
Adam   Mon Oct 13, 2008 9:06 pm GMT
The BBC is the world's number one news broadcaster.

Britain's BBC is the world's largest broadcasting corporation, employing almost 29,000 people in Britain alone and has an annual budget of £4 billion ($8 billion).

The BBC is available in over 274 million households worldwide. Its nearest competitor, CNN, reaches 200 million households worldwide.

The BBC has the world's highest number of employed news journalists (CNN is in second place) and the world's highest number of worldwide news bureaus (CNN is second place).

The BBC is also the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation, founded way back in 1922. CNN was founded in 1980. The stated mission of the BBC is "to inform, educate and entertain" (as laid down by Parliament in the BBC Charter)

Its motto is "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation".
Guest   Mon Oct 13, 2008 9:58 pm GMT
Reuters.
Adam   Wed Oct 15, 2008 5:41 pm GMT
Reuters is also British, but it's nowhere near as influential as the BBC.

When Reuters was founded in the 19th Century, it gained a reputation for being the first organisation to report news scoops from abroad.

It was the first to report on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Uriel   Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:25 am GMT
A news agency's business is reporting, not wielding influence.
Guest   Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:16 pm GMT
<Reuters is also British, but it's nowhere near as influential as the BBC. >

The BBC gets much of its info from Reuters.
Trawicks   Fri Oct 17, 2008 4:02 pm GMT
I'd definitely say the BBC. The BBC is far more common outside the UK than CNN is outside America. Plus, even in the states, CNN is routinely mocked.

Oh, also, there's no real comparison because the beeb isn't a cable TV channel.
Travis   Fri Oct 17, 2008 4:09 pm GMT
Agreed here. I would say that the BBC has far more prestige overall than CNN, which is little more than yet another cable news channel all things considered. On that note, as American English-language media goes, I would say that by far the most prestigious today is the New York Times, which is followed distantly by the Washington Post.
Skippy   Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:16 pm GMT
I'm an American and I'd have to go with the BBC... People in the US read/watch it, though I must admit I'm unaware of how popular CNN is in the UK.

Nevertheless, don't most commonwealth nations have their own BBC?

And CNN is widely watched, but many of my friends have started watching the networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) for their news because CNN has in recent years become more of the center-left counterpart to Fox News being center-right, where the anchors may be difficult to pinpoint on a political spectrum, but the commentators at CNN are significantly more to the left while the commentators at Fox News are more to the right.
Amabo   Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:36 pm GMT
The BBC certainly is prestigious.

Whether it actually deserves its reputation is much more debatable.
Mossie   Sat Oct 18, 2008 11:58 am GMT
<<Oh, also, there's no real comparison because the beeb isn't a cable TV channel. >>

Depends where you're living...I live in Ireland and we have to pay for it. Just Saying...
A Brit   Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:56 pm GMT
The Daily Show rocks.
Uriel   Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:32 pm GMT
True, but that's really a comedy show.