In Praise of Ted Turner

The passing of Ted Turner at the age of 87 is more than just the end of an era. It marks the loss of a maverick innovator who proved that great ideas, brilliant vision, and a willingness to upend conventional thinking could change the world.

by Alex Ben Block

“My life is more an adventure than a quest to make money,” Turner once said. “Adventure is going out and doing something for the pure hell of it. You just want to see if you can do it, period. There's no thought of gain other than your own satisfaction."

I was lucky enough to cover the rise and brilliance of Ted Turner as a reporter over many years, and he never failed to exceed my expectations with everything from his genius to his off the wall observations and intellectual daring.

There are many obits and eulogies out in the wake of his death after a long illness and I urge you to read as many as possible to understand just how he changed the way we get, understand and absorb news, information, technology and much more. So this is not an attempt to provide his history or his madness or all he accomplished in one lifetime, far more than almost anyone else in the modern era.

The memory that floods back for me was a full day more than three decades ago I got to spend shadowing Ted Turner when he was in Los Angeles for a convention on cable television. Ted, as I will refer to him here (which was what urged me to call him) had flown in on a private jet piloted by a beautiful, buxom blonde pilot who was also his girlfriend of the moment (in between his three marriages). His publicist who set up my day tagging along with Ted made me swear to only one absolute rule – I could report on anything I heard or saw – except the presence of his lady friend, who was at his side all day (along with his publicist).

I caught up with Ted at the cable show in Anaheim, California, where he was keynote speaker at an event that morning. Ted quickly scraped the written speech his publicist provided, as he spoke in his folksy manner, with his usual brilliance, and his trademark country friend comedy, an inspiring speech that both excited and challenged his audience to go beyond expectations and to ignore conventional thinking. He left the packed crowd in a huge auditorium cheering, laughing, applauding and amazed as he jumped from the obvious to the impossible future – challenging them to ride cable TV into a future full of purpose and promise.

Ted then walked the convention floor across a mini city of exhibits and attractions, shaking hands, talking to anyone who could keep up with him, smiling, laughing and being an inspiration to most and an amusement to others.

After a luncheon where he spoke off the cuff again to a room full of moguls and innovators challenging them to not only. Make money, but to use the new platforms to bring a wide range of programming to life, from news to innovations he fathers like a cartoon network and what became Turner Classic Movies (born from his daring purchase of MGM, where he did not do well making movies but came away with a library of movies that spun off a series of other networks.  

That afternoon I raced to keep up as Ted went from Anaheim to Beverly Hills to other parts of Los Angeles, pushing, preaching, and electrifying a series of groups.

Ted had a few drinks along the way and then a few more. And with each toast and blast, his comments became more colorful, outrageous, amusing and as off-beat as they were off the cuff.

By dinner time Ted was going at high speed but I was exhausted, as was his publicist. Even his pilot was ready to fly back to the hotel but Ted kept up his pace, with endless energy, full of flare and fire, that left everyone who shared his day as stunned and amazed and touched as I was.

Ted was a visionary but also a bit of a madman that day. He had boundless energy and an ability to laugh at himself, keeping many he touched feeling as if they had a new friend. 

So much more happened over the years. Ted sold CNN to Time Warne who flipped it to AOL, which pushed him aside. As always Ted was right. The AOL deal was a disaster. It also cost Ted a large part of the fortune he had built.

Ted went on to re-energize the United Nations, to become the biggest land owner in America, to become one of the leading conservationist in the world and much more.

As Ted passed away, his signature company CNN is on the verge of being swallowed up by Paramount Global. Having already brought CBS from the Tiffany Network to a news network in freefall, that change seems to mean the Oracles who control CNN (with the help of a lot of Middle Eastern money) will likely use their love of Trump to damage that great network as well.

Under Ted, CNN was about news from around the world, as never before told, that was built on great, truthful, honest reporting. Under the new owners, that tradition is threatened. Maybe is fate that Ted will not be around to shed tears for what is about to happen to the 24-hour news empire he invented.

So, I take this as a moment to remember the brilliant, amazing, one of a kind genius Ted was, not to mourn his passing, but to remember what he did for our world. He was a giant even if his small minded, greedy billionaire successors may refuse to  keep his flame burning.