And Klein needs a vision. He's the network's fifth president since 2000, and as CNN prepares to blow out the candles on its 25th birthday cake, it's looking more toward attracting new viewers for the future than reflecting on the glory days of its past.

For his part, Klein has already started playing Jenga with the network's prime time lineup. Saying he didn't want any more "shouting debate shows," he canned Tucker Carlson, killed Crossfire, and declared himself against "talking about news" in favor of "delivering the news." That's a sentiment echoed almost word-for-word by several of the CNNers interviewed for this story, one that doubles as a not-so-veiled slam against the competitor no one wants to mention by name: Fox News.

Meanwhile, for CNN the organization, looking toward the future means a lot more than jockeying CNN/U.S.'s ratings into the winner's circle, because, at 25 years old, CNN is no longer just CNN.

"CNN is among the three most recognized brands in the world," says Jim Walton, president of the CNN News Group, who joined the company a year after it first lit up the cable-TV screen in 1980. Now he ticks off the list of businesses that carry the CNN name: news networks in multiple countries and multiple languages, radio news, the Internet. "I don't subscribe to the feeling that CNN ever got away from covering news," he says. "There are lots of stories about one of our competitors doing very well, but even if you look just at what you call CNN - but we call CNN/U.S. - it's doing just fine."