Ted Turner, CNN founder, dies at 87

0:03 Some breaking news into the newsroom.

0:04 CNN is reporting that legendary newsman and business entrepreneur

0:09 Ted Turner has died at the age of 87.

0:12 Ted Turner is largely credited with transforming the television landscape.

0:16 In 1980, he launched CNN as the very first live 24-hour news station,

0:21 but he began his career long before that.

0:27 You worked at CNN for many years and Errol as well.

0:31 Look, when I joined CNN, the legacy, as I'm sure it still exists today,

0:36 permeated through almost everything we did at CNN.

0:40 It really did feel I would talk to people who

0:43 had worked with Ted when he was still running CNN, who would say things to me.

0:47 They would talk about Ted in almost mythical terms.

0:51 And and you did you you absolutely felt at CNN

0:54 that you were part of something that he had created,

0:57 but that he that in almost everything, the way we were trained,

1:01 the way we learned how to report in the CNN way,

1:04 the kind of breaking news stories that we did,

1:06 how we were launched into big breaking news stories

1:09 as a unit was very much from the mind of Ted Turner.

1:13 And remember that when CNN launched in 1980, it was the laughing stock.

1:17 It would be great to talk to some people here at CBS News

1:20 who worked at CBS News at the time of the launch of CNN,

1:23 and I promise you they will say that they thought it was a joke,

1:27 that there was nothing that Ted Turner was going to do in the news business

1:30 that would ever erode what the networks ABC

1:33 NBC and and CBS were doing at the time.

1:37 And they were called Chicken Noodle Network.

1:40 That's how much respect they didn't have in the business.

1:43 idea back in 1980 was so ambitious.

1:46 I didn't join CNN International until 2008, but even at that time,

1:51 Ted was still doing programs to welcome new people.

1:54 That was a mentorship that's right that's right

1:57 into the 2000s and if you rewind back to 1980 people

2:01 were laughing at Ted Turner who wanted the strange concept

2:04 of a 24-hour news channel and he famously said when

2:07 they opened Techwood which is where CNN has moved back

2:10 to in Atlanta now you see a black and white

2:12 image he said you know this will be the first

2:15 footage that we will show and CNN will only

2:17 go off the air at the end of the world

2:20 the last thing you'll see on CNN's footage is

2:22 the end of the world this ambitious effort to give

2:25 people news not just during the morning show or during

2:28 the evening news a thing that CBS News helped

2:31 to pioneer but he pioneered 24-hour round-the-clock news that people could

2:36 access on their cable television and he thought it could

2:39 stand up to the journalism of networks like this one.

2:42 Well when you saw how you saw that play out and we're

2:44 going to run an obituary from our Lee Cowan in just

2:47 a moment but how you saw it play out is I

2:48 remember very distinctly I was a in college when the first

2:52 Gulf War broke out that's right CNN was the only news

2:57 network to have live footage as the attack on Saddam Hussein

3:03 began and there's a you talk to the old-timers at CNN

3:06 they have incredible stories about how they were actually able to accomplish

3:09 that but it I remember watching in my in my apartment

3:14 in my college apartment I didn't care about CBS didn't care

3:17 about NBC didn't care about ABC I was glued to CNN

3:19 and so was the entire world and that moment put CNN

3:23 and some of the people I'm looking over at Wolf Blitzer

3:25 right now in our newsroom who's talking about Ted put people

3:28 like Wolf Blitzer on the map so Lee Cowan as I

3:32 said has a look back at Ted Turner's career and his legacy.

3:37 What did we we were 15 and 3/8 yesterday?

3:40 Ted Turner was never a man to shy away from a challenge on land or sea.

3:47 Whether bringing the America's Cup back to the US saving

3:50 the American bison getting the Atlanta Braves to the World Series,

3:56 or changing the way we all consumed news.

4:00 We intend to cover all the news all the time.

4:03 Ted Turner can only be described as an American original.

4:07 I'm a I'm a multi-faceted person.

4:09 I've got a lot of different personalities.

4:12 He was a hard-drinking, cigar-smoking adventurer.

4:15 He had kind of a Ernest Hemingway vibe just with deeper pockets.

4:19 I get thousands, millions, and billions mixed up.

4:22 Turner had all kinds of nicknames,

4:24 The Mouth from the South and Captain Outrageous.

4:27 He was for some as unlikable as he was invincible.

4:31 But in 2018, he disclosed to CBS Sunday

4:34 Mornings Ted Koppel he was fighting Lewy body dementia.

4:38 Can you tell us what that is?

4:40 It's a um mild case of what people have as Alzheimer's.

4:48 His memory back then hadn't forgotten his three marriages,

4:52 especially the one to Jane Fonda.

4:54 Have you ever quite got over her?

4:56 No.

4:57 Do you think you ever will?

4:58 No.

5:00 When you love somebody and you really love them, you never stop loving them.

5:05 Ted Turner's legacy will always be paired with CNN.

5:08 And yet, the gift he seemed most proud of was the natural habitats he

5:13 saved by buying and protecting more wild acreage than almost anyone in the US.

5:20 Do you ever ride your whole property here?

5:23 No.

5:24 But I've ridden quite a bit of it.

5:26 It's tempting to call him a master of his domain.

5:30 But he'd prefer caretaker.

5:32 "We don't own anything," he said.

5:35 "We just borrow it for a while." Lee Cowan, CBS News.

5:41 I mean, Lee puts it so beautifully

5:44 beautifully and eloquently that Ted Turner was

5:47 and we as we were talking about CNN

5:50 we obviously failed to mention the Atlanta Braves,

5:53 series his superstation TBS, TNT, his marriage to Jane Fonda.

5:58 Exactly.

6:00 Yes, he was an entrepreneur.

6:02 He famously had a feud with Rupert Murdoch which lasted

6:06 for many many years although I think subsequently they they made amends.

6:10 One of the things that I was reminded of as I was watching

6:12 that obituary is CNN at the time when I joined about the same

6:16 time that Errol did back in '08 had a program where they would

6:21 pay you to they would pay your tuition if you were in school.

6:24 Not the entire tuition but there was tuition reimbursement.

6:27 Because Ted believed in that.

6:28 Ted believed in mentoring.

6:30 Errol pointed out the mentoring program.

6:31 When I joined CNN they had a very extensive mentorship program

6:36 and also I remember being astounded that everybody who joined CNN

6:40 at the time whether you were production assistant or an anchor

6:44 everybody started out with like a very significant number of vacation days.

6:48 Not like typical two week no it reflected

6:51 his values and people would say and I would

6:54 say why why do we do this and they would say because Ted that's what Ted wanted.

6:58 You know.

6:58 And that is actually something that has become more rare over time

7:02 that the original founders of media companies stay and keep an imprint.

7:07 They stay present.

7:08 He wasn't as much involved in the daily operations once you got into the 2000s

7:13 and as that mentioned he was mocked for his ideas

7:15 back in the 1980s the idea of a 24 hour news channel but it was the Iraq

7:20 war in the early 90s that really allowed CNN

7:24 to gain legitimacy in the eyes of people

7:26 not just in the US but around the world.

7:29 I remember when I was in England as a young

7:31 child my stepfather was in the US Air

7:34 Force and stationed in the Gulf during the first

7:37 Iraq war and we were glued to the television

7:40 worried about what was happening with our families

7:43 and you watch those green night time vision goggles

7:47 and footage of the the missiles and the munitions

7:50 flying through the air and it really transported people

7:53 for the first time to the location of where

7:56 a war was taking place and it you know

7:58 you had Bernard Shaw and others will blitz her back

8:01 then who were cornerstones of that coverage and throughout

8:04 the 90s and so to hear of Ted Turner's

8:07 passing now you see him there with the former

8:09 head of the United Nations way back when he

8:15 really was a man who was with that Kofi Annan.

8:17 He was with all sorts of world leaders and continued

8:20 to have an imprint and in many ways CNN was his child.

8:23 He also had these interesting edicts at one point I believe he

8:26 didn't like the word foreign and he banned the use of the word

8:30 foreign at CNN and instead you were supposed to call things

8:34 international which is a big reason why he didn't like foreign correspondents.

8:38 We were international correspondents.

8:42 I mean there is a slight change in kind of the

8:45 He also had this thing where he would say you would say I work

8:48 for Ted Turner and he would correct you and say no you work with Ted Turner.

8:52 That's that and I don't know Errol are you part of I just logged

8:55 on to his Facebook because I'm a member of the CNN alumni Facebook page.

8:59 Yeah and so I immediately turned to that because

9:02 you're now starting to see the number

9:04 of people who worked specifically and directly

9:07 with Ted were commenting now on the news.

9:10 If you're just joining us here on CBS News 24/7 warning was that CNN founder

9:16 and entrepreneur and pioneer Ted Turner has died at the age of 87 and I'm

9:20 just starting to see even from people

9:22 that I know Steve Stahl heartbroken this is

9:24 a quote heartbroken me know I knew for a long time this day was coming.

9:28 It is an honor it wasn't my honor to work with him.

9:30 He would always correct you if you said work for him.

9:33 Paul Caron like I posted earlier this week.

9:35 Thank you so much Ted for creating an opportunity of a lifetime

9:38 for this punk from Detroit who had never gone farther than Windsor,

9:42 Canada travel-wise and experienced the biggest international

9:45 and national stories from the front row of history.

9:48 People like Ted, Eason, Tom, these are people who the execs of CNN at the time

9:53 and many others helped create a pretty darn good life for me.

9:56 We'll be saluting him in a newscast in Savannah tonight.

9:59 So, you're going to see, I think, over the course because so many people who

10:02 are in this business now at some point

10:04 or another worked with Ted Turner and you're

10:06 going to start to see those tributes pouring out.

10:10 And in many ways he helped put Atlanta on the TV production map.

10:14 Ted Turner was very particular in launching

10:17 this ambitious effort to have a 24-hour news

10:20 channel that the headquarters stay in Atlanta

10:23 and he wanted to make sure that the company

10:25 and the network didn't lose sight of {quote}

10:28 regular Americans in places outside of big

10:32 cities and it's a big reason why to this day Atlanta really has transformed.

10:36 The CNN Center where the company was previously based because it grew

10:39 so big was the home of CNN what we would call domestic,

10:42 CNN International, CNN en Español,

10:45 some of the other stations and you could go on tours in Atlanta.

10:48 I went on tour and you took me

10:49 around the the measurement of the CNN newsroom floor.

10:52 It was a big deal.

10:54 News really.

10:55 But what you guys described is this is

10:57 not just a businessman or an entrepreneur.

10:59 This is someone who created a culture Really.

11:01 and that culture permeates throughout the news industry.

11:04 You know, I know all of us at CBS who've been affected by this culture,

11:09 who've grown from this culture and so thank

11:11 you guys both for sharing these wonderful tributes.

11:13 before we go to break from Stephanie Coquillette who was a CNN alumni.

11:16 She posted on the CNN alumni page.

11:18 I think it really sums up what we've been talking about.

11:20 The balls of this man to blaze the trails he did.

11:23 I will be forever grateful I got to work at CNN while he still owned it and I

11:27 had a say in the hand that steered and had

11:30 a say in the hand that steered the ship.

11:31 I talked to my journalism students about his innovation and his drive,

11:35 and I hope against hope that his lessons passed on will

11:37 possibly allow journalism to find a way through these times.

11:40 Thank you, Ted.

11:41 Yeah.

11:42 Perfect tribute.

11:43 Vlad, thank you for reading that.