bob furnad was in top management at cnn for 18 years, including stints as head of political coverage and executive vice president. he retired in 2001 as president of cnn's headline news, and now teaches broadcast journalism at the university of georgia. bob, start by taking us back in time. you came in early on. what were you all trying to do? did anyone have a clue as to how to do it or what might come of it? >> we were trying to stay on the air for 24 hours. i don't think had quite figured out how to do that. we brought a lot of comment tateors in, folks who could supposedly put things into perspective but actually were there to help us fill time. when we didn't have material to fill time, we were obviously more free to go live with events because we didn't have many commercials to lose. it was a learning time. it was a learning time for everybody. we were staffed primarily by young, inexperienced people that were running the cameras poorly, that were editing the tapes sometimes poorly. so it was a challenge to get on and stay on. >> brown: what do you see as the key to building th