MUMBAI: CNN celebrated its 25th birthday on 1 June 2005. Its founder Ted Turner said that the network should be covering international news and the environment, not “trivial” issues and the “pervert of the day.”

Speaking to CNN employees Turner said, "I would like to see us to return to a little more international coverage on the domestic feed and a little more environmental coverage, and, maybe, maybe a little less of the pervert of the day. You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well.

When asked by the network's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour whether CNN was the "vision" Turner had expected, he said, "Yes, yes it is. The only thing that I would suggest, and I love it the way it is. I watched a little bit of TV, listened to a little bit of radio. But listen, somebody's got to take the position of being the place to go. Somebody's gotta be the most respected name in TV news. I wanted that position for CNN. I wanted to be the New York Times of the airwaves, not the New York Post. That's what we set out to do, and we did it."