[1][needs update] Jornal Nacional premiered on September 1, 1969, hosted by Hilton Gomes and Cid Moreira, the first Rio de Janeiro-produced newscast to be shown nationwide.

The British documentary Beyond Citizen Kane suggests that this happened so that Globo wouldn't have to report the repression of the Brazilian military government, which would have provided a substantial part of the network's growth.

Two years later, the program was accused of omitting information about the Diretas Já, a popular campaign for resuming the direct election for president, near the end of the dictatorship.

Jornal Nacional presented its viewers breaking stories such as police brutality at favelas, an interview with Paulo César Farias when he was on the run from the law, corruption cases on the social security, the kicking of the saint incident among several others.

Jornal Nacional has preferred to broadcast stories produced on the Southeast, in spite of Globo having affiliates in every Brazilian state.

[5][6][7] On June 19, 2017, Jornal Nacional introduced a new set in the middle of a newsroom at Globo's Rio de Janeiro headquarters, which features a curved glass backdrop that can be used with laser projectors for background graphics, and augmented reality effects.

[8] From August 31 through November 30, 2019, in honour of the program's 50th anniversary, Saturday editions of Jornal Nacional were broadcast with anchor pairings representing Rede Globo's affiliates.