CNN Daybreak CNN Daybreak CNN Daybreak is an American early morning news television program aired on CNN, anchored from New York by Carol Costello. It debuted on June 1, 1980, the same day CNN went live. The first program to air live weekdays on the network, it preceded "American Morning" at 5:00 a.m. ET. Similar to "First Look" on MSNBC, the program was based on covering the news stories of the morning without talk and analysis, usually with correspondents on location or taped stories from the previous evening. Until spring 2005, Daybreak was aired from the CNN Center in Atlanta. Costello then
CNN supplemented by personality-based programs during the evening and primetime hours. The first Persian Gulf War in 1991 was a watershed event for CNN that catapulted the channel past the "Big Three" American networks for the first time in its history, largely due to an unprecedented, historical scoop: CNN was the only news outlet with the ability to communicate from inside Iraq during the initial hours of the Coalition bombing campaign, with live reports from the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad by reporters Bernard Shaw, John Holliman and Peter Arnett. The moment when bombing began was announced on CNN by Shaw on