Happy Birthday, CNN. And It Is A Happy Birthday, Right?

(From Newsday -- By Verne Gay)

Twenty-five years. So many memories. Most of them -- believe it or not -- even good ones. And just look at what a big, healthy, strapping lad you've grown into -- from one little cable network to services, feeds and "streams" across every conceivable technology platform, and so ubiquitous that 2 billion souls around the globe can get some form of CNN whenever they want.

This would even be a spectacular birthday if you could just get viewers, pundits and (of course) columnists to excise the words FOX NEWS CHANNEL from their mental hard drives, which they can't. So "happy" might be a stretch.

It takes a gutsy network to throw a 25th-birthday party and pretend nothing is amiss. Gutsy or delusional. But on this day 25 years ago, not only television journalism but also world culture changed, so perhaps a celebration is in order.

Since Monday, CNN has been hosting a WORLD REPORT CONFERENCE in Atlanta, where hundreds of foreign journalists and world leaders have convened. Today at 1:30 pm, CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR will conduct a live interview with CNN founder TED TURNER -- the only one he's giving. Tonight, there's DEFINING MOMENTS -- 25 STORIES THAT TOUCHED OUR LIVES at 8 and 10, while a special edition of LARRY KING LIVE! (featuring former President BILL CLINTON) airs at 9.

Do not expect any references to some guys named RUPERR MURDOCH or ROGER AILES today.

And just to prove that this is a really special moment, CNN even made its normally press-allergic leader, JIM WALTON, available for press interviews. In the one with NEWSDAY, Walton made no effort to sidestep the inevitable question about FOX -- "Some of (CNN's) problems the company brought on itself with various management changes, and some of it was brought on by very loud competitors who were trying -- and some would say they were successful in some areas -- to define CNN."

Or, he might add, to clobber CNN in the ratings.

Internally, Walton is a well-regarded if somewhat remote leader whose style has been to delegate -- which is no doubt a necessity at a place with thousands of employees and dozens of businesses - while the man doing most of the talking for him these days at CNN/US is JON KLEIN, a former CBS NEWS executive.

Walton was named head of the CNN News Group -- the whole shebang -- in 2003 in the wake of yet another management putsch that sent several bosses spinning out the door. Benumbed CNN veterans cheered his ascendancy, in part because he had spent his entire professional life at the network, where he began as a "VJ," or video journalist.

But lately CNN has been on pause, or a sense that prime time, daytime and early morning are about to be overhauled yet again. "Whenever there's change people, get a little nervous, and no doubt people want to see what's going to happen," says veteran anchor WOLF BLITZER. "(But) I'm pretty optimistic that on the 25th anniversary, we're moving in the right direction."

Meanwhile, there is TED TURNER. Anyone who wasn't around 25 years ago can't even begin to imagine what a gaudy, wild, improbable and spectacular idea CNN was. Twenty-four hours of TV news? Was he kidding?

So today must be kind of special for him, too. But by most accounts, the man who symbolized one of the great innovations in journalism history is an embittered outsider who rues the decision to sell his company to TIME WARNER 10 years ago. "He doesn't talk about it unless you bring it up, but he's still hurting," says SIDNEY PIKE, the former chief of CNN INTERNATIONAL who just completed a book on his years at the company.

And after realizing that CNN's slow, painful decline began virtually the day Turner signed the papers, it's easy to see why. Without its extraordinary leader, CNN instantly lost a sense of style, adventure and elan.

Now the future belongs to Walton, steady, measured and calm, or the mirror opposite of Turner. Asked how he spends his days, the words "journalism" or even "cable TV" aren't reflexively trotted out.

Instead, he says, "What you will see over the next two to four years is that technology will change the media more than in the past 15 (and) so what we need to do as a news organization is to try and get our arms around what we feel the consumers expect and want out of us."

You are correct -- It's not the answer Ted would have offered.

Walton also makes perfectly clear that he supports Klein, although he is perfectly unclear about what changes may be in the works. LARRY KING, 71, "will be doing (his show) for as long as he wants to," while prime-time hosts PAULA ZAHN and AARON BROWN, are "consummate professionals. Aaron is a wonderful writer (and) there are a lot of people who are very, very loyal to (him). Am I one of them? Loyalty's a funny thing -- he needs to perform as do all of our people, and as long as he performs, I'll continue to be loyal."

And Turner? Walton's clear on this one -- "Ted was the face of CNN and he's missed by a lot of people, including me."