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Heartened by the success it's found with documentaries about Osama bin Laden and waste in the federal government, CNN is debuting a new weekly investigative series this month to showcase long-form pieces by some of the network's best-known correspondents.
"CNN: Special Investigations Unit," which will premiere Jan. 20, is the latest initiative at the cable news network, which has undergone a raft of personnel and programming changes since Jonathan Klein, a former CBS News executive, took over as president of CNN/ U.S. two years ago.
Under Klein, the network has spotlighted a coterie of stars with distinctive personalities and moved away from traditional stand-up news reports in favor of more packaged stories but has yet to move out of second place.
"The logical evolution now is to add more long-form investigative work, because we've got by far the best team of reporters of anybody," Klein said. "We want to put them to use."
The new hourlong series, which will air Saturdays and Sundays at 5 p.m. with a repeat at 8 p.m., will feature work by chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour and anchors Anderson Cooper and Soledad O'Brien as well as correspondents like John Roberts, John King and Candy Crowley.
Klein said viewer response to documentaries CNN aired last year confirmed that there is an appetite for more in-depth pieces. An August special by Amanpour called "In the Footsteps of Bin Laden" drew more than 2...