BROOKE GLADSTONE: When war is raging or 50 million people are plunged into darkness, CNN is at its best --delivering up to the minute news for an eager audience. In the absence of crisis or mayhem, however, the mission of 24 hour cable news becomes less clear and the ratings challenges more daunting. Fox News Channel has found one solution: a hybrid of news and incendiary talk radio style opinion.

BOB GARFIELD:And CNN has tinkered along populist lines too - with star anchors, Crossfire pyrotechnics and tabloid-y topics -- but with a palpable sense of unease and not much success. Now, with the rise of CNN veteran Jim Walton to the top job, the network is renewing its commitment to the old values of hard work covering news. The New Republic's Jason Zengerle visited the CNN center in Atlanta, otherwise known as "the biosphere" and wrote for the New York Times Magazine about the network's ongoing identity crisis. Jason, welcome to On the Media!

JASON ZENGERLE: Thanks for having me.

BOB GARFIELD: How would you characterize, now that you've spent some time in the biosphere, CNN's notion of what its relationship is with its competitor Fox News Channel.

JASON ZENGERLE: It's really actually quite difficult to get anyone at CNN on the record to say the word "Fox." They go out of their way to pretend it's not there. They refer to "one of their competitors" usually when they're talking about Fox. But I think what Walton's trying to do is make it clear inside the biosphere and inside all the bureaus that CNN is a different beast. Fox is about opinion and commentary. CNN is largely about presenting the news in a serious, objective way. That's not to say that it's going to be like the old CNN --just, which was a pretty straightforward, almost bare bones approach, almost ascetic, to presenting the news. Ted Turner had this notion that the news is the star. Walton doesn't think that. Walton wants to make sure that the people presenting the news are attractive and engaging -- you know, that he actually has stars delivering the news. But at the same time he wants those stars to stick to the news and not get into opinion or tabloid-y things.

BOB GARFIELD:One of the most interesting aspects of your piece in the New York Times Magazine concerns the attempt under the previous news management regime at CNN to build ratings. The current boss is Jim Walton, but preceding him was Walter Isaacson who had been there for about five minutes before he brought in Connie Chung. Tell me about the Connie Chung Tonight program.

JASON ZENGERLE: Well on the plus side for CNN Connie Chung really grew the ratings in that 8 p.m. time slot. On the down side, her show was, as some people there would put it, "off brand." It was very tabloid-y. It frequently had stories about kidnappers or pedophiles. She also -- I think she hadn't done live TV in a while, and she was a bit rusty. So while the show garnered pretty decent ratings, inside CNN it became a real flash point for a lot of people's grievances.

BOB GARFIELD:So about five minutes after Walton took over he canceled Connie Chung and she went off and left the company. Your piece notes that this made Walton a, a hero at CNN. Tell me about Jim Walton and, and his journalistic history.

JASON ZENGERLE: Well Walton is a CNN lifer. Right after he graduated from college in 1981 he went to the network -- he took an entry level job. Some of his duties included operating a teleprompter. And he's been there for 22 years. He's not a flashy guy at all. He's not really even very well known outside the building. Walter Isaacson, obviously before he came to CNN he'd been the managing editor of Time. Since he's left he's written a biography of Ben Franklin. Those aren't things that Jim Walton's going to do. But the rank and file there I think just implicitly trust him in a way that they don't trust people who come from outside the company. CNN is a very insular culture.

BOB GARFIELD:On the other side of the equation, though, the people who came in, like Walter Isaacson and most particularly Jamie Kellner, the Hollywood programming genius who was actually Walter Isaacson's boss during Isaacson's regime, believed that those in the biosphere had been in the biosphere too long and were just naive about what it took to generate an audience. Truth in that view?

JASON ZENGERLE: Yes! I mean when CNN was created it was one of a kind. Kellner and Isaacson I think came in and they probably over-reached in a few instances. They made some miscalculations. But the general thrust of what they were trying to do was probably necessary for CNN in the new competitive environment of cable news.

BOB GARFIELD:CNN is owned by AOL Time Warner. Do you think AOL Time Warner will be content to maintain CNN's news values if they understand that they will never be able to compete with Fox News Channel, or will there be pressure on Jim Walton as there was on Walter Isaacson to make changes at the margins that will deprive CNN of its soul?

JASON ZENGERLE: Well there are two competitions going on. There's a ratings competition and there's a money competition. And right now CNN is getting crushed in the ratings competition, but they're actually winning the money competition. Now CNN's analysis for why that's happening is they think that advertisers will pay a premium to advertise on CNN because it's a classier environment, because of its news environment. There are people in the advertising community who say that's true, but there other people who say that advertising dollars will follow the ratings. And Fox has only been beating CNN for about a year and a half now, and in that year and a half you've seen them catch up with CNN in the advertising department. If Fox starts making more money than CNN, I think you'll then see AOL Time Warner start saying to CNN why do we need to have this, this huge news operation? But for the moment, all Walton needs to do is make more money than Fox and AOL Time Warner will be happy.

BOB GARFIELD: Well Jason, thank you very much.

JASON ZENGERLE: Thanks a lot for having me.

BOB GARFIELD: Jason Zengerle is an associate editor for the New Republic and a contributor to the New York Times Magazine.