Ted Turner, Creator of CNN and the 24-Hour News Cycle, Dies at 87

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Tales From the MoJo Road –
By Glynn Wilson –

COULTERVILLE, Calif. – When I saw the news that CNN’s creator Ted Turner died the other day, I knew I would soon find time to write about him. He was one of the most iconic figures of our generation, and based in the Capital of the New South, Atlanta.

Nobody writes about the New South anymore. It was a late 20th century thing. But Ted Turner did more to move the South out of the 19th century than anyone, even though in his youth, he tended to side with the remnants of the Confederacy and against the Union cause.

As The New York Times wrote in its as always amazing feature obituary on Turner, he became much more than the creator of CNN and the 24-hour news cycle. I know people hate paywalls, which helped kill online newspapers, but this is THE one paywall you should pay for.

Ted Turner, Creator of CNN and the 24-Hour News Cycle, Dies at 87

“As one of the most important figures in media history, he oversaw a vast cable empire of news, sports and entertainment channels,” the Times writes in the subhead.

“Ted Turner, the media mogul who cut a brash and vivid figure on the American scene of the late 20th century by dominating the cable television industry, creating the 24-hour news cycle with CNN, and extending his restless reach into professional sports, environmentalism and philanthropy, died on Wednesday at his home near Tallahassee, Fla. He was 87.

Phillip Evans, a spokesman for the family, confirmed the death. Mr. Turner announced in 2018 that he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder.”

Yes, Turner will always be remembered for his signature creation, the Cable News Network, which did indeed revolutionize television news beginning in 1980 and coming into its own in the early 1990s during the first Gulf War. By using his father’s billboard advertising company in Atlanta as a launch pad, Turner started broadcasting often quirky news all day and night, eventually driving other media operations to do the same.

Many of us in the newspaper and magazine business at the time hated it, because it made us all have to work harder. It eventually created a news addicted culture, which led to the term “news junkie.”

The Times does not include that tidbit in its obit.

Read the full column in the New American Journal: Ted Turner Was One American Egomaniac Who Found the Light and Should Be Remembered for the Good He Did in the World.

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