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CNN Center, Atlanta, Georgia

To act upon one’s convictions while others wait.
To create a positive force in a world where cynics abound
To provide information to people when it wasn’t available before
To offer those who want it a choice
For the American People whose thirst for understanding and a better life has made this venture possible
For the cable industry whose pioneering spirit caused this great step forward in communication
And for those employees of Turner Broadcasting whose total commitment to their company has brought us together today
I dedicate the news channel for America – The Cable News Network

Ted Turner, CNN Dedication

Author: Ed Kepler

Atlanta

It was Sunday June 1st, 1988, when Ted Turner stepped before the microphones to officially open The Cable News Network. Not far away, husband and wife team of David Walker and Lois Hart were nervously waiting to air CNN’s first newscast. Here’s what the nation’s curious cable viewers saw on one of the most promising days in the history of broadcast news:

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CNN Dedication Ceremony

A Nation Hungry For Probative News

CNN Founder & Visionary, Ted Turner

When it came to broadcasting, Ted Turner’s vision was clear, his goals worthy, and his energy immense. In a business largely managed by followers and MBA thinkers, people he identified as cynics, Ted Turner was a cut above — being both a maverick and a risk-taker. Whatever the undertook, Turner aimed to win — for in Turner’s lexicon, being second-best was for losers.

Turner’s immense self-confidence, some say his ego, was only exceeded by his vision. Turner saw what others could not — that broadcast news had vast untapped potential. He would tap that potential — and do so without the dead weight of affiliate stations, or the indecision of network executives absent Turner’s self confidence and determination.

For Tuner, the future of broadcast news was on cable — where there was freedom to experiment and make mistakes. Cable also had something no network could ever have, 24 hours a day waiting to be filled with news content. From the day CNN began broadcasting, Turner imbued it with one overriding goal — be the best broadcast news service there ever was.

CNN Without Turner: Authoritative Entertainment

Turner’s CNN proved immensely successful — and were he still in charge today, the world of 24 hour news would be very different. For in the absence of Ted Turner, 24 hour news has become an oxymoron in the classic sense of deafening silence. Without powerful journalistic standards, hard-nosed critical editing, enforced ethics and a well defined singularity of purpose, what’s aired on today’s 24 hour news channels is in reality title more than authoritative entertainment.

From the outset, Ted Turner wanted CNN to be the most watched and most respected television news operation. Such a high goals might have daunted lesser leaders, for the world into which CNN sought to compete was one of network news dominance. On the day CNN went on the air, broadcast news was at its apogee in popularity and influence. To compete, CNN had to be more than as good, it had to be better than the most respected news organizations of that era.

The First 25 Years

Under Turner’s management, CNN effectively blended broadcasting’s reach and immediacy with hard news standards and ethics. At its apogee, Turner’s immodest claim that CNN was world’s most respected news source was arguably true — for Ted Turner effectively one-upped the American broadcast networks at their own game. CNN not only offered unbridled coverage of live events, it also developed a commanding reputation for journalistic excellence and editorial judgment. CNN was not perfect, nor was it universally loved, in part because CNN sought to achieve balance by providing a variety of political points of view.

No matter its critics, CNN was immensely successful. Just 7 years after its founding, CNN had earned a secure position in broadcast journalism. When CNN outgrew its original downtown home, Turner moved the operation to Atlanta’ Omni in a building he unabashedly christened CNN Center. Here’s video about the move.

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CNN: The First Seven Years

After Turner, Profitability Replaced Journalistic Standards

Today’s highly polarized cable news services are no longer bonafide news outlets. They look like news, they talk about news, but they deliver little probative news content. The reason lies in the reality that being profitable is the only motivation in cable news today — everything else is conditional. When profitability is the only goal, there are no ethics.

An Insider’s View

“. . . you have an organization that is trying to figure out if it can be all things to all people. Can it be an opinion network, can it be a tabloid-driven network, can it be a serious news organization? It used to be a serious news organization. It’s hard to be all those things. It’s really hard to be all those things. You end up being none of them.”

Aaron Brown, ABC, CNN, PBS

 

Talking Heads, Branding and Conflict

Today, branding is what matters at the 24 hours news channels. FOX News Channel, MSNBC and CNN have in some ways made of themselves political activists. Gone are the days of strict editing, journalistic credibility, enforced standards and relevancy. In their place are sensationalized content, promotable story lines, flagrant pandering to some cable news generated obsession du jour. Responsibility, relevancy, critical editing and to some degree credibility are largely gone, perhaps seen as passé. In the new world of television news, personality and attitude matter a great deal. Being honest brokers of information gets plenty of lip-service, at least when it’s convenient.

Thus does Ted Turner’s dream die at the hands of opportunists and accountants. No longer is heard his visionary claim “For the American People whose thirst for understanding and a better life has made this venture possible.”

In 20 short years, by all the surveys, we became the world’s most respected news source. The New York Times had been there for 100 years. We did it in 20.

Ted Turner, CNN Founder

Blowhards, Conflict Facilitators And Actors

One need look no further than the cable news channels’ roster of blowhards, conflict facilitators and entertainers to see the outcome of Edward R. Murrow’s 1958 admonition that absent standards and vigilance the freaks and the clowns would take over television. Junk news and let’s pretend news presenters are profitable and the perpetrators well paid. Some of them are superstars — Bill O’Reilly and Shepard Smith at FOX; Wolf Blitzer and Lou Dobbs at CNN; Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC. These engaging personalities are on the air because authentic television news does not compete well with entertainment driven television.

The easy answer to this dilemma is fake news programming in which entertainers play the part of legitimate newsmen for an audience that has little memory of credible television news, but a voracious appetite for anything capable of arresting endless channel boredom. Among the most profitable news entertainers are those with abundant skills at being aggressive, confrontational and intimidating. FOX is heavily armed with intimidators including Bill O’Reilly, Shepard Smith, and Sean Hannity. They are each very talented presenter/hosts. None pass the smell test as newsmen — nor do their competitors — for journalistic qualities and standards are revenue negatives when your competition is serving up conflict and entertainment.

All of the reasons cited in Ted Turner’s inauguration speech that hot Sunday in June remain. With little or no legitimate competition in probative, relevant and credible television news, someone will re-invent CNN.

If we’re lucky, it just might be Ted Turner.