Satellite News Channel launch a spin-off service, CNN2 (later renamed CNN Headline News shortly after SNC's launch; it is now named HLN), which originally maintained a format similar to that being planned by the Satellite News Channel – albeit with newscasts running in 30-minute intervals – as a preemptive strike against the ABC/Group W venture. CNN2 made its launch on January 1, 1982 on participating cable systems across the county as well as through a sneak preview block on sister channel Superstation WTBS. Satellite News Channel launched on June 21, 1982. During that time, it provided competition for CNN, the first cable network
History of CNN (1980–2003) a CNN issue – every journalist who was in any way involved in 9/11 is partly responsible." In April 2003, Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, wrote an op-ed piece in "The New York Times" stating that he had lobbied the Iraqi government for 12 years in order to maintain a CNN presence in Iraq. He also admitted to withholding what would be considered newsworthy information of the government's atrocities, citing fears that releasing news would potentially endanger the lives of Iraqis working for CNN in Baghdad, some of whom had already been subject to beatings and torture. Critics