International media coverage of the historic events in Moscow on December 25, 1991, was a first for world broadcast news. Earlier in the year, Ted Turner's Cable News Network had a television news victory. A decade after its founding, CNN, surpassed the "Big Three" American networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- in ratings with its coverage from inside Iraq during the Gulf War. The 24-hour news network had come into its own. That Christmas Day, CNN got its next major scoop in Moscow.
With the exception of a small ABC crew filming in Moscow for a documentary, CNN had exclusive access that day to both Boris Yeltsin, set to become the first-ever Russian president, and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. After carrying Gorbachev's resignation speech live, CNN broadcast a sit-down interview with the former Soviet leader. CNN aired the speech at 11 am EST, whether on its own channel or through other networks that had bought the right to show it, in over 150 countries; history-making news broadcast around the world instantaneously. It was the first time that a news organization had broadcast, live, an interview with a world leader the same night he had resigned.
Cameras rolled as the Soviet flag, which had flown over the Kremlin for decades, was taken down and replaced with the new Russian standard. The flag was not supposed to be replaced until after the New Year, but Kremlin workers made the switch shortly after Gorbachev's resignation. Russian News, the only outlet aware of the changeover in advance, was the sole organization to capture it on video.
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