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by MARK POWELL
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When word came that Ted Turner had died Wednesday morning at age 87, accolades rained down like a spring downpour. From social media to the legacy mainstream press, words like “legendary,” “visionary,” and “trailblazer” were constantly repeated.
Turner was all those things, and more. He was also an adventurer who bordered on perpetual recklessness, a gambler with a penchant for extraordinarily high stakes, and a simplistic soul whose personal life was as flawed and complicated as his professional successes were dazzling.
Known (not always humorously) as the “Mouth of the South,” he was the real deal. What you saw – with all its beautiful blessings and occasional dark curses (sometimes both at once) – was what you got.
I frequently saw Turner during my two stints working at CNN – from 1984 to 1986 and again from 1995 to 2009. This, of course, was back when the network still covered the news and hadn’t yet morphed into the left-of-center mouthpiece it is today.
To say he made an impression was an understatement.
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One story always conveyed what the real Ted Turner was like. My communications mentor, the late Neil Kuvin, was an executive at Atlanta’s NBC affiliate in the 1970s. Turner had taken WTCG, broken down local UHF TV Channel 17, and was in the process of transforming it into Super Station WTBS, a pioneering national cable channel. Neil only knew Turner casually through mutual broadcasting connections.
So it was, to say the least, surprising when Turner suddenly showed up one day without an appointment. After a gruff hello, Turner announced, “geez, what a crappy office!” He proceeded to wander around the room, picking up various pieces of bric-a-brac on a display case and commenting (disapprovingly) on each item.
Silently amused, Neil finally asked, “is there something I can do for you, Ted?”
“Yeah,” Turner said, spinning around. “You can quit your job. I want you to work for me.”
Neil declined the invitation, and they parted amicably. But it was a prime example of how Turner operated. He decided what he wanted, and he went for it. No dillydallying, no pussyfooting around.
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There were several keys to his success. First, he could spot opportunities others missed. Such as the marriage of the aforementioned Channel 17 and his ownership of the then-sad-sack Atlanta Braves, using the former to morph the latter into “America’s Team.”
In those early days, the Braves went through a phase where players wore their nicknames on the back of their jerseys just above their team number. Turner told the player who bore #17, “your nickname will be ‘Channel,’” resulting in free advertising every time a camera showed the guy.
But amid all the laudatory eulogies for Turner being shared today about how he created live global TV news coverage (thus creating the 24-hour news cycle in the process), permit me to point out one of his greatest and most overlooked accomplishments.
Turner gave an entire generation of journalists, broadcasters, and communicators their professional start. I know because I was one of them.
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When CNN signed on the air on June 1, 1980, followed by CNN2 (which would soon become CNN Headline News) on January 1, 1982, Turner faced a dual dilemma: The operating budget was huge seeing as the manpower alone required to operate 24 hours a day in that era before computers ruled our lives was staggeringly expensive, and the incoming revenue was very small.
CNN wasn’t nicknamed the Chicken Noodle Network for nothing.
“Back in those early days, we were always terrified every two weeks, worrying if we would make payroll,” a company executive told me many years later. “Several times, strong ticket sales at Braves games were all that saved our bacon.”
Consequently, Turner Broadcasting was powered by eager, bright, dewy-eyed kids just out of journalism school and college. “Ted Turner gave me my start” is a recollection being repeated hundreds of times today.
True, we were paid half a pittance. I made a mere $15,000 annually starting out in 1984 at age 23—and I was one of the better-paid staffers. But the practical hands-on experience gained from being in the news trenches day after day was, in the words of the classic Mastercard commercial, “Priceless.”
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I distinctly recall one moment in the newsroom. It was well after midnight, and the producers, news writers, and copy editors – all in their early to mid-20s – were engaged in the frenzied daily game of “Beat the Clock,” racing to get the next newscast ready for air.
Turner was giving some VIPs a personally guided tour. He did that from time to time. (I’ll never forget the night he waltzed in with Raquel Welch on his arm.) He was standing near my desk, and I heard him say with a mixture of awe and pride in his voice, “Just look at them. They create and broadcast 48 half-hour newscasts every single day. And they don’t even realize they’re doing the impossible.”
That was Ted Turner’s greatest achievement. It wasn’t just that he had grand sweeping visions that ultimately impacted the entire world and was willing to push all the chips to the middle of the table and roll the dice on them.
It was that he inspired others to share in his vision, to dig deep within themselves, do the impossible, and make that vision come true.
BANNER VIA: ALAN LIGHT
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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