LONDON: CNN has become the latest network to launch a daily show just for Snapchat, as it tries to reach a younger audience that increasingly gets its news from social media.
“The Update” will be available from 6 p.m. ET every day and features news stories from reporters and correspondents from around the globe. Lasting between three and five minutes, the show focuses on topics such as climate change, politics and international affairs — issues CNN has found resonate with Snapchat users.
“We are introducing our brilliant cast of world-class anchors and reporters to a young audience in a smart, accessible way with ‘The Update’,” said Samantha Barry, CNN’s executive producer for social and emerging media.
“In today’s news environment, people are hungry for news and they want a quick update of where things are at within one tap of their phone.
“So, we’re serving that up, speaking their language and delivering it in beautiful, vertical, mobile-friendly video.”
CNN was an original Snapchat Discover launch partner and has decided producing its own Snapchat show was the way to go after the millennial audience.
It follows NBC in producing its own Snapchat news show. NBC has seen early success with its twice-weekly show “Stay Tuned,” launched in July, which saw more than 29 million unique users in its first month.
But while figures like that are enough to make any broadcaster salivate, they have not been enough to persuade the BBC to create its own Snapchat show.
The British broadcaster’s social-media focus is fixed on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It now has over 4 million followers on Instagram, whose own “Stories” application is similar to Snapchat.
“We’re funded by license fee, so we have to harness and hone our resources in a way which will make the biggest impact. It’s not worth having a dedicated team of staff on a channel (Snapchat account) that has just 3,000 on for us,” Mark Frankel, social media editor at BBC News, told Digiday earlier this summer.
Recent figures show that Snapchat reaches nine times more 18- to 34-year-olds in the US every day than the top-15 TV networks. Only this month, however, Snapchat’s head of content Nick Bell said the platform was not a “TV killer.”
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Bell said: “Mobile is the most complementary thing to TV that has been around. We’re really capturing the audience who are not probably consuming TV at the same rate and pace of engagement that they once were.”
CNN turns to Snapchat to reach a younger audience
CNN turns to Snapchat to reach a younger audience
Israel arrests 2 Turkish CNN journalists over live broadcast outside IDF HQ
- Police said reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Halil Kahraman were detained on suspicion of filming a sensitive security facility
- Since the Gaza war began, restrictions have expanded significantly, including tighter limits on filming soldiers on duty and sensitive or strategic sites
LONDON: Israeli police have arrested two Turkish CNN journalists who were broadcasting live outside the Israel Defense Forces’ headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Police said the pair were detained on suspicion of filming a sensitive security facility, according to the Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit.
Reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Halil Kahraman, from the network’s Turkish-language channel, had been reporting near the IDF’s Kirya military headquarters on Tuesday after Iran launched another missile barrage at Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel.
During the live broadcast, two men believed to be soldiers approached the crew and seized the reporter’s phone, according to initial reports and a video circulating online that could not be independently verified.
Police said officers were dispatched after receiving reports of two people carrying cameras and allegedly broadcasting in real time for a foreign outlet.
עיתונאים של CNN טורקיה נעצרו לאחר שצילמו את בסיס הקרייה@NoamIhmels pic.twitter.com/t8a5P9yXfw
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) March 3, 2026
Israel’s long-standing military censorship system, overseen by the IDF Military Censor, has long barred journalists and civilians from publishing material deemed harmful to national security.
Since the Gaza war began, restrictions have expanded significantly, including tighter limits on filming soldiers on duty and sensitive or strategic sites.
After a series of similar incidents involving foreign media — most of them Palestinian citizens of Israel working for Arab-language and international media, along with foreign journalists — during the 12-Day War, Israeli police halted live international broadcasts from missile impact sites, citing concerns that exact locations were being revealed.
The Government Press Office later imposed a blanket ban on live coverage from crash and impact areas.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir subsequently ordered that all foreign journalists obtain prior written approval from the military censor before broadcasting — live or recorded — from combat zones or missile strike locations.
Police said that when officers asked the CNN Turk crew to identify themselves, they presented expired press cards and were taken in for questioning.
Burhanettin Duran, head of Turkiye’s Directorate of Communications, condemned the arrests as an attack on the press and said Ankara is working to secure the journalists’ release.
