CNN 5 Things

I dedicate the news channel for America, the cable news network.

'When Ted Turner created CNN in 1980, he not only started the first 24-hour news channel, he revolutionized the way the world consumes news forever. Starting with his father's Billboard advertising company, he bought a few radio stations and a failing TV station in Georgia. Turner created a global media empire that helped shape the way journalists report stories around the world. Without him, I would not be sitting here recording this podcast, and my colleagues wouldn't be bringing you the news around the clock every single day. Ted Turner has died at the age of 87. From CNN, I'm David Rind with this look back at the man and the legacy he leaves behind. Robert Edward Turner III, who would one day earn the nickname, the Mouth of the South, was born on November 19th, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Educated at a boarding school that he didn't like, his childhood was marked by a difficult relationship with his father. Turner spoke about being disciplined with a leather strap or wire coat hanger. He spent high school at a strict military school until landing at Brown University. But his father stopped paying his tuition because he didn't approve of his son's major. Turner shared a letter he got from him with CNN.

My dear son, I'm appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted classics as a major. As a matter of fact, I almost puked on the way home today. I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, devotedly dead.

When the money dried up, Turner dropped out of school to return to Georgia and work at his dad's billboard company, Turner Outdoor Advertising. And when Turner was just 24, his father took his own life, leaving Turner in charge of the company.

You said set your goals so high that you can't achieve them in your lifetime.

He buried his shock and grief in work, setting him on a path that would revolutionize the media landscape. Then in 1970, he made his first jump to TV, purchasing the struggling Atlanta Station, Channel 17. But he didn't get into the news right away. Instead, he focused on sports, buying the rights to Atlanta Braves baseball games and marketing the Braves as America's team. Viewers flocked to the channel, and so did advertisers. And Turner started to set his sights on something bigger. In 1976, he beamed Channel 17 up to a satellite and it became cable TV's first superstation that could be watched around the country. Both the Atlanta Braves and Basketball's Atlanta Hawks became part of his growing empire. His early approach to the news was to satirize it, with a late night, early morning spoof show on the news hosted by Bill Tush. For long though, he got serious about finding a way to keep Americans informed at all times of the day.

I worked till 7 o'clock, and when I got home, the news was over, so I missed television news completely, and I figured there were lots of people like me.

'Even though people said he was crazy, in 1980, he announced that he was launching the cable news network, CNN, the world's first ever 24-hour news channel.

We sign on June 1 and barring satellite problems in the future, we won't be signing off until the world ends. We'll be on, we will cover it live.

I'm David Walker.

And I'm Lois Hart. Now here's the news.

Now, CNN was not what you would call an instant hit. In fact, a lot of people, especially those in the traditional news media, were dismissive of the whole endeavor. Some called it chicken noodle news. And the White House wouldn't even issue CNN reporters' press passes. The network was repeatedly hit with technical problems and snafus as it tried to find its footing. In a 2015 interview, Turner admitted that it almost didn't make...

I knew I didn't have enough money to get CNN to break even, but I figured if I get on the air and people see just how helpful it's going to be, I'll be able to raise the money.

Turner pretty much lived on a convertible sofa in his CNN office in Atlanta for the first 10 years, and longtime employees recalled seeing him walking out into the newsroom wearing a bathrobe. Here's former CNN president Tom Johnson.

He was one of us. I mean, he would be in his house, coat down, having breakfast in the Hard News Cafe.

Despite the early challenges, Turner knew he was onto something revolutionary. And on January 17th, 1991...

This is, something is happening outside.

Something happened that changed CNN and the media forever.

The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated. We're seeing bright flashes going off all over the sky. That was a large air burst that we saw.

When the Gulf War broke out, CNN was the only TV news network able to sustain live coverage from Baghdad. The harrowing first few hours of the war were broadcast by CNN as live audio from CNN's three reporters in the Iraqi capital.

I turned it to NBC, and they had Tom Brokaw talking. And I put it on ABC, and it had talk. And then I turned on CBS, and then they had talk, and I turned to CNN, and the had the war.

I was in the CNN newsroom when the Gulf War broke out.

CNN's Jim Schiffman, who still works here to this day, was there as all three American broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, took CNN's air.

We had no video, only audio. The feeds from Baghdad for the broadcast networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, went down. And one by one, we saw on monitors in the newsroom that the networks were taking our signal. When the third network took our feed, a cheer went up in the new room. That was the moment CNN arrived.

Suddenly, the importance of having the news available 24 hours a day became clear. For the first time in history, war was broadcast live to a global audience and it was only on CNN. Tom Brokaw even recognized the achievement and the bravery of the journalists while he was anchoring for NBC.

They were able to get on the air, they have stayed on the air, CNN used to be called the little network that could. It's no longer a little network.

Now Turner did take some heat for broadcasting behind enemy lines, but he said it was important to give people the full story.

'We weren't anti-American. We were just pro-truth.

'From then on, Turner was hailed as a visionary, and in 1991, he was named as Time Magazine's Person of the Year, which is why he took it so hard when he lost control of the network after he sold his media company to Time Warner. He stood down as vice chairman of the board in 2003 and left the Time Warner board in 2006. Co-workers gave him a standing ovation on May 19th of that year when he announced he was quitting. And in interviews later in his life. He said it was a regret he never got over.

I don't know how to quit. It's not in my genes.

While work was a huge part of Turner's life, it was far from his only passion. He was also really into sailing, and in 1977, he won the America's Cup with the yacht Courageous, which gave him another nickname, Captain Outrageous. Turner was passionate about the environment, particularly in his later years. He's given millions of dollars to various environmental causes, including air and water quality improvement, sustainable energy, and wildlife protection. Here's a wild fact, he was at one time the largest landowner in the US, at one point owning ranches that covered almost 2 million acres, more than 10 times the size of New York City.

When I was a little boy, about 10 years old, I read National Geographic magazine, and it had an article about bison, and it said how close they came to extinction.

Turner said he decided then that he would do what he could to bring them back, and just like most of the projects he put his mind to, he was decidedly successful. His bison herd grew to more than 50,000 head and he's credited with being a huge part of the species' repopulation. And one of Turner's main goals in life was to help people. In 1986 he founded the Goodwill Games, which brought together athletes from Russia and the U.S. In the closing years of the Cold War.

I wanted to go out and turn the world of enemies into a world of friends, because friends want to help each other, and they don't want to kill each other and destroy each other and bomb each other.

Fought to get nuclear weapons banned, and in 2001 created the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a cause that he spoke passionately about well into his later life, and in 1997 he made a bold pledge to the United Nations.

I decided though what would be really exciting to do is I'm going to donate a billion dollars to the UN causes myself.

'He followed through with his word, making his last payment in 2015. Turner is survived by five children, 14 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. He was married three times, including a love story fit for the headlines.

My name is Jane Fonda. I met Ted Turner in 1989 and I've loved him ever since.

Turner first asked movie star Jane Fonda out when he heard that she'd just gotten divorced.

Pick up on this booming voice, is it true? Is what true? You and Hayden, are you divorcing? You wanna go out?

She said, I'm devastated and I'm not going to talk about...

Went out. I said I'm actually in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Call me in six months. I thought this guy is crazy. This is not what I want to hear right now.

And I called her six months to the day. She agreed to have dinner with me. It was love at first sight.

They got married two years later and stayed together for 10 years. Turner was devastated when they split, but they continued to have a close friendship, speaking on the phone regularly and showing up for each other's charity events. And Fonda always spoke highly of Turner.

I can't ever forget the reasons that made me fall in love with him. I've never met any human being that thinks the way Ted does.

'A sentiment that was shared by a lot of people who met Turner. I've heard from a few of them here at CNN. But it didn't matter how successful he became. He was still often trying to prove himself. A businessman, sportsman, media visionary, and philanthropist, Ted Turner left a larger-than-life imprint on the world. And he changed the way news is reported forever by bringing the story straight from the front lines into our living rooms. No matter how you get your news and information today, whether it's TV, social media, a podcast like this one, it was likely influenced by Ted Turner. As CNN's former president Tom Johnson once said, he was one of a kind.

We have never seen a man quite like Ted Turner before on this planet, and I don't think we'll ever see another one like him again.