co-owned magazine Sports Illustrated, and CNNfn, a business news channel created as a competitor to CNBC (CNNSI shut down in 2002, while CNNfn shut down in December 2004; CNN continues to maintain a partnership with Sports Illustrated through CNNSI.com). CNN launched its website, CNN.com (initially an experiment known as CNN Interactive), on August 30, 1995, which grew to become one of the most popular news websites in the world. Several specialty websites were launched in later years such as CNNMoney, created in partnership with fellow co-owned magazine Money; CNN also launched a radio network that provided news updates and other content to radio stations nationwide. The network grew to include 36 bureaus (10 domestic, 26 international), and expanded its broadcast partnerships to more than 900 affiliated local stations (which also receive news and features content via the affiliate video service CNN Newsource). CNN's success made a bona-fide mogul of founder Ted Turner and set the stage for multimedia conglomerate Time Warner's eventual acquisition of the Turner Broadcasting System in 1996. Coverage of the Gulf War The first Persian Gulf War in 1991 was a watershed event for CNN that catapulted the network past the "big three" American networks for the first time in its history, largely due to an unprecedented, historical scoop: CNN was the only news outlet with the ability to communicate from inside Iraq during the initial hours of the American bombing campaign, with live reports from the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad by reporters Bernard Shaw, John Holliman, and Peter Arnett. The moment when bombing began was announced on CNN by Bernard Shaw on January 16, 1991 as follows: The Gulf War experience brought CNN some much sought-after legitimacy and made household names of previously obscure, low-paid reporters. Many of these reporters now comprise CNN's "old guard." Bernard Shaw became CNN's chief anchor until his retirement in 2001. Others include then-Pentagon correspondent Wolf Blitzer (now host of The Situation Room) and international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Amanpour's presence in Iraq was caricatured by actress Nora Dunn in the role of the ruthless reporter Adriana Cruz in the 1999 film Three Kings. Fellow Time Warner-owned network HBO later produced a television movie, Live from Baghdad, about CNN's coverage of the first Gulf War. CNN was criticized for excessively pushing 'human interest' stories and avoiding depictions of violent images; the result of all this being an alleged 'propagandistic' presentation of news.