CNN throws itself a 30th birthday party

Former Beacon Journal staffer Jim Kavanagh emailed the BJ Alums blog the URL for CNN's trumpeting of its 30th anniversary yesterday.

Click on the headline to hear the 30-second video introducing the 1980 birth of CNN. After listening to the video, click on

interactive gallery

and read the timeline for CNN over the decades.

This was the birth of 24/7 cable news. Today, it's everywhere and makes newspaper news 12 hours later seem ancient. But Ted Turner did it first.