CNN is getting its mojo back.  At least I think so.

A network I once loved – and then couldn’t stand to watch – has again become the default station on my television screen at night.

It’s all the international news of course. The revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East and the tsunami coverage in Japan once again show that no one can touch CNN for ‘round-the-world news coverage.

CNN seemed to have forgotten what it was in the past several years.  Maybe the 24-hour news network panicked at the rapid ascent of strongly-opinioned Fox News and gambled on being a counter-balance.  Or maybe it tried to cut costs by switching from expensive news gathering to an in-studio talking-head format.  Whatever the reason, the format and attitude change failed utterly to this viewer, and apparently hundreds of thousands of others based on CNN’s loss of market share to FOX and MSNBC in the first decade of this century.

CNN was like a miracle to news junkies like me when it first appeared in 1980.  It followed on the heels of another minor miracle, ABC News Nightline, – called “The Iran Crisis—America Held Hostage: Day [fill in the blank] when it launched in 1979” – the compelling four-hour nightly news program anchored by Ted Koppel.

The thing about CNN was that you could turn it on anytime – day or night – and see or hear the word’s news – with minimal editorial slant – unfolding before your eyes.  (I even forced myself to watch Larry King in the early years.) It was crack for news addicts.

Fox News and MSNBC are different and worthy animals.  If I want to nod-in-agreement-myself to sleep I’ll put on Fox.  My beloved sister, Ann, a loyal reader of this page, might choose MSNBC to do the same.

But if you want to watch news – news news – you’re supposed to go to CNN. I am so glad CNN is beginning to see things that way again.

If they would just shake that British guy at 9 pm…