BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: Nineteen-eighty was an unusual year for this new network, going on the air. We were covering our first national political convention, the Republicans in Detroit at Joe Louis Arena.</s>SHAW: This place is buttoned down, they wanted everyone to leave, of course, we cannot leave because we have to report to you.</s>SHAW: One afternoon, I had finished a cut-in, and we were the only ones in the hall. I looked in, and who's walking out on the stage but Ronald Wilson Reagan, the great communicator, they called him. What he was doing was coming into the hall to rehearse his acceptance speech.</s>SHAW: Ronald Reagan, standing at the podium, he will stand there tomorrow night.</s>SHAW: So I quickly tell Atlanta what was going on, and we put it on the air live. And for about 45 minutes, I'm voicing over, narrating, reporting, describing what Reagan is doing.</s>SHAW: Just moments ago, as we were preparing for our news cast...</s>ROBERT NOVAK, "CAPITAL GANG": And it was very hard at the 1980 conventions, particularly in the few days before the convention got under way, to fill all the air space.</s>NOVAK: George and I have been told by the Reagan people that both Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford will come to the hall.</s>NOVAK: We were a very small operation, then.
CNN 20: CNN Remembers the 1980 Republican National Convention