Making the News - Ted Turner and CNN | Author Lisa Napoli discusses CNN’s impact on American television and culture | 5

Summary

Business Movers: Making the News - Ted Turner and CNN

Hosted by Lindsey Graham | Released on April 10, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Business Movers, host Lindsey Graham delves into the transformative journey of CNN, exploring its inception, challenges, and lasting impact on American media and culture. Featuring insights from Lisa Napoli, author of Up All Night, Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24 Hour News, the conversation uncovers the pivotal moments and personalities that shaped the first 24-hour news network.

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The Birth of CNN

The story begins on August 2, 1990, with Ted Turner standing outside the Atlanta Yacht Club, contemplating the future of his newly appointed CNN president, Tom Johnson. This moment marks a critical juncture as CNN prepares to cover one of the decade's biggest stories: the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Lisa Napoli provides a comprehensive background on CNN's foundation, highlighting Ted Turner's vision and the collaboration with Reese Schoenfeld, CNN's first president. Turner, originally uninterested in news, saw an opportunity to revolutionize media by leveraging emerging cable and satellite technologies.

"Ted was at the right place at the right time with the right tools." (10:02)

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Early Challenges and Growth

Initially, CNN struggled to gain traction. With limited cable subscribers and skepticism from traditional broadcasters, the network faced significant hurdles. Napoli explains that CNN's growth was gradual, relying on major news events to attract viewership.

"It took a long time for CNN to grow... It came out slowly and gradually." (15:23)

Key events that propelled CNN into the spotlight included the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the Tiananmen Square protests, and the Gulf War. These moments demonstrated the value of relentless, around-the-clock news coverage, establishing CNN as a trusted news source.

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Key Personalities: Ted Turner and Reese Schoenfeld

Ted Turner's role as a visionary entrepreneur was instrumental in CNN's success. Despite not being a news enthusiast initially, Turner's commitment and financial backing were crucial.

Reese Schoenfeld, an experienced news executive, complemented Turner's business acumen with a deep understanding of journalism. Their partnership, though ultimately strained, was foundational in building CNN's early infrastructure.

"Ted had the money and Reese had the vision. They needed each other." (12:55)

However, strong-willed personalities led to tensions. Turner's business-oriented approach clashed with Schoenfeld's journalistic ideals, ultimately causing their split after several years.

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Impact on Media and Culture

CNN's pioneering 24-hour news format reshaped how Americans consumed information. Lisa Napoli emphasizes that CNN's model moved away from traditional morning and evening news summaries, fostering a culture of instant news access.

"Every reporter today walks in the footsteps of Ted Turner and Reese Schoenfeld." (26:34)

The network's comprehensive coverage during the Gulf War elevated its status, making real-time news a standard expectation. This shift influenced other networks, leading to the emergence of competitors like Fox News and MSNBC, which introduced more opinionated and politically charged content.

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The Evolution and Decline of CNN's Monopoly

As competition intensified in the late 1990s and early 2000s, CNN faced challenges in maintaining its dominance. Lisa Napoli outlines how external investments and ownership changes diluted Turner's control, leading to shifts in editorial direction.

"Once you give up control and take on investors, all bets are off." (25:41)

The entrance of Fox News and MSNBC, with their distinct political perspectives, fragmented the 24-hour news market. CNN attempted to stay true to its original mission of unbiased reporting but struggled against the rising tide of opinion-driven journalism.

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Cultural and Political Consequences

The transformation of news into a competitive entertainment industry has had profound effects on American society. Lisa Napoli argues that the shift towards personality-driven and reactionary news consumption undermines informed public discourse.

"Everything is reactionary... there’s no way to step back and have a reflective thought." (33:38)

This evolution has contributed to a more polarized political landscape, where news is often consumed based on emotional reactions rather than in-depth analysis. The decline of objective journalism in favor of engagement and ratings has significant implications for democracy and societal discourse.

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Additional Influential Figures

Beyond Turner and Schoenfeld, two key individuals played vital roles in CNN's early success:

1. Bill Tush: The first cable television star, Tush's engaging presentation of news headlines drew nationwide attention to CNN's broadcasts.

   "Bill Tush was the very first cable star and he helped draw attention." (36:44)

2. Ted Kavanaugh: A formidable newsroom manager, Kavanaugh maintained high standards and discipline, ensuring quality journalism during CNN's formative years.

   "He was the real drill sergeant who ran the newsroom on behalf of Reese." (36:44)

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Business Lessons from CNN's Journey

Ted Turner exemplifies entrepreneurial resilience, taking calculated risks to build a media empire. Key business takeaways include:

• Vision and Persistence: Turner’s unwavering belief in CNN, despite early setbacks, underscores the importance of staying committed to a long-term vision.

  "Ted took a thriving business and wanted to grow. He wasn't afraid of tough challenges." (39:32)

• Adaptability: CNN’s ability to leverage technological advancements and adapt its strategy in response to changing market conditions was crucial to its initial success.

• Leadership and Collaboration: The dynamic between Turner and Schoenfeld highlights the challenges and necessities of aligning business and journalistic goals.

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Conclusion

CNN's inception marked a revolutionary shift in the media landscape, driven by Ted Turner's entrepreneurial spirit and Reese Schoenfeld's journalistic expertise. While CNN's monopoly eventually waned under competitive pressures and ownership changes, its legacy persists in the 24-hour news cycle and the way information is consumed today. Lisa Napoli's exploration of CNN's rise and transformation offers valuable insights into the interplay between business innovation and media ethics.

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Recommended Reading

For those interested in further exploring CNN's history and impact, Lisa Napoli recommends:

• Me and Ted Against the World by Reese Schoenfeld
• Media Man by Ken Owletta
• CNN: The Inside Story by Hank Whittemore

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This episode of Business Movers was produced by Lindsey Graham for Wondery, with research by Owen Paul Nichols and production support from Jake Sampson and Scott Reeves. Special thanks to Lisa Napoli for her invaluable insights.

Transcript

[Lindsey Graham]

Want to get more from business movers? Subscribe to Wondery for early access to new episodes, ad free listening and exclusive content you can't find anywhere else. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's August 2, 1990, outside the Atlanta Yacht Club in Georgia. 51 year old Ted Turner stands on a jetty, his eyes closed, listening to the gentle lap of the waves and soaking in the warm morning sun. But his moment of peace is soon broken. Ted opens his eyes to see a man in a business suit hurrying along the jetty toward him. A few weeks ago, Ted appointed Tom Johnson as the new president of cnn. It's only Tom's second day on the job, but he's already been handed one of the biggest stories of the decade. He's been up all night dealing with it, and it shows. His suit is disheveled and his eyes are red. When he reaches Ted, Tom stops to catch his breath. Sorry I'm late, Ted. Busy night at the office? Well, you could say that. What's the latest? Well, it looks like the invasion's already over. The Iraqis have taken Kuwait City. There was no resistance. Iraqi army has over a million troops. The kuwaitis have barely 20,000. It's a miracle they lasted even a few hours. So Saddam Hussein is just one. Well, for now. Washington and London are rattling their sabers. I expect there'll be American boots on the ground before Christmas. And CNN reporters too. Well, that's the plan, Ted. This could be the biggest story CNN has ever covered. I need to know what kind of budget I'll be working with. Well, what do you need? It's a fast moving situation. We'll want round the clock teams on the ground in Baghdad, Kuwait City, and with any US Forces we can get access to. All right, done. And they'll need security. When I was with the LA Times, we lost two bureau chiefs in combat zones. They were good people. Tom, you'll have whatever it takes. Even if it costs millions. Then we'll spend millions. This isn't just the biggest story since CNN started. This is the biggest story since Vietnam. That war changed television news forever. And this one might do the same. I want CNN to own it. All right. Understood. Tom looks out over the serene waters. A seagull dips low over the waves before wheeling into the clear blue sky. That's hard to believe. Our country's about to go to war. I bet a lot of people don't believe it. But that's our job, isn't it? We're the ones who are going to bring it home and make it real. While other television networks were reluctant to invest in reporting on the Gulf War, CNN spent the modern equivalent of $50 million. It was a gamble that paid off. CNN's journalists redefined what television reporting from a war zone could look like, and the channel's ratings soared to new heights. But the coverage was almost too good. The praise earned by CNN during the Gulf War would spur the development of a new generation of 24 hour news rivals. Back in the 1980s, CNN had quickly defeated its early competitors, but when Fox News and MSNBC emerged in the 1990s, they'd be here to stay. With the Spark Cash plus card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase and you get big purchasing power so your business can spend more and earn more. Steven, Brandon and Bruno, the business owners of Sandcloud, reinvested their 2% cash back to help build their retail presence. Now that's serious business. What could the SparkCashPlus card from Capital One do for your business? Capital One what's in your wallet? Find out [e-mail] SparkCashPlus terms apply need.

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[Lindsey Graham]

From Wondery. I'm Lindsey Graham and this is business members. On June 1, 1980, a media revolution began. The world's first 24 hour news channel went live and television would never be the same. The Cable News Network was the brainchild of brash Southern businessman Ted Turner, but the man he charged with bringing CNN to life was experienced news executive Reese Schoenfeld. Their partnership turned an ambitious idea into a new fixture in the American media landscape. But the road to success wasn't always smooth. Early Blunders made CNN such a laughingstock that it was dubbed Chicken Noodle News by its rivals. But CNN eventually found its feet and 24 hour news coverage proved its value with a series of high profile stories. Reese and Ted's partnership didn't last, but the channel they'd built together was strong enough to survive. And for 16 years, CNN enjoyed an almost complete monopoly over 24 hour news. But in the aftermath of the Gulf War in the early 1990s, two well funded rivals emerged to challenge CNN's dominance. Like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News promised non stop coverage of national and international events. But unlike cnn, these two newcomers were unafraid to wear their political leanings openly. These new, more opinionated channels soon proved popular with the American public. And it wasn't long before CNN lost its crown as the nation's premier source of breaking news. CNN may no longer lead the ratings, but its trailblazing success in the 1980s still shapes the way the news is consumed in the modern world. The old model of morning and evening news summaries isn't coming back. The rise of the Internet and social media has only fueled audience demand for instant reporting and commentary. But whether a news story breaks on television or a smartphone, every reporter today walks in the footsteps of Ted Turner and Rhys Schoenfeldt. Here to talk about the impact of CNN on American media and culture is Lisa Napoli, author of Up all night, Ted Turner, CNN and the birth of 24 Hour News. Lisa Napoli, thank you for speaking with me today on Business Movers.

[Lisa Napoli]

Thank you.

[Lindsey Graham]

Now, you've previously worked as a journalist in newspapers, radio and television, so you have a bit of experience in this world, but how did you come to write about the birth of CNN?

[Lisa Napoli]

I began my career at 16 or 17, actually as an unpaid teenage intern at CNN when it was in New York, where I'm from, at the World Trade center, in the base of the World Trade Center. Fast forward many, many years. And as you say, I worked in all media and I'm writing books now and I'm rooting around for the next book. And a former colleague and dear friend from that period of time said to me, you know, no one has written of how CNN got started. So even though I hadn't worked at CNN for many, many decades, I knew a little bit about the earliest days because I had been there. And so I just started researching it because I thought it was an important story to tell. Many people were telling the polarizing stories about FOX versus cnn and it seemed to me that no one knew or understood or was around for the time when CNN was the only 24.7tv news game in town. Important book to write.

[Lindsey Graham]

Why do you think that story hadn't been told already? Was it hard to find people to speak to you about that time?

[Lisa Napoli]

Not that I think it's that laziness is what it was. Just like people don't like to read books. A lot of people didn't want to think back that far. History is compelling to those of us who read and write it. But a lot of people just want to focus on the mechanics of today. And it's much more interesting that it's a boxing match between two or three players than it is to look at the roots. And in fact, there were many people who were excited to talk about this because nobody had ever asked them about it. And there was much that was written about that time that had gone forgotten. Which is why being a historian is fun.

[Lindsey Graham]

Well, what we've learned through our series so far is that the birth of CNN was in many ways a boxing match between several people. But Ted Turner was the person who I guess instigated it and certainly bankrolled it. Do you think that he was in any sense a media visionary in making this bet? Or was he just in the right place at the right time?

[Lisa Napoli]

It's really important to point out that there were a lot of people thinking about the new media landscape back when Ted Turner started cnn, launched cnn, there were lots of people who were playing around with the concept of an all news format. In answer to your question, Ted was at the right place at the right time with the. And the right tools. If you didn't have the tools, the money. It's not like today where you can start a podcast in your basement and potentially become famous or at least well known. Back then, you needed tools that only somebody like a Ted Turner or a broadcast television network could access. So yes, it was very much a moment in time stories, as most great entrepreneurship stories are.

[Lindsey Graham]

Let's talk about that moment in time and I guess the media landscape at the moment. If there were people who were eyeing the future of television news, what were they seeing? What was the sea change that they were trying to wrestle with?

[Lisa Napoli]

Well, the people who were eyeing television news were the people who were making television news at the time. And they saw that this new entry, cable, which wasn't actually technically new, it had been around for a while, but it was getting to new heights, literally and figuratively because of the introduction of the commercial satellite. They were all eyeing this emerging landscape of Cable married with satellite that allowed their broadcast signals to transmit than they ever had before. And so it was just like with any introduction of any sort of new technology, there were people who saw that there was a lot of power in broadcasting in a different way. And the way it had been done for a while was local stations and national networks, and there were just three national networks. And there was a very limited media landscape. And all of a sudden this new technology allowed people to broaden that. And that's what would got a lot of, not a lot of people relatively, but they got the innovators in that world to think about this and to wonder what they could do with these new tools. Just exactly the same way people are talking now about what are we going to do with AI, what are we going to do about AI as we did 20 something years ago when I worked at the New York Times and people were freaking out about what's going to happen with the Internet. Every single time there's a creation of a new technology, there are some innovators and experimental people who sit on the fringe and try to figure out what to do with it. And that's what that moment in time was in the late 70s when Ted Turner was playing around with this cable satellite marriage.

[Lindsey Graham]

Speaking of marriages, let's turn to Rhys Schoenfeld, the man who was most responsible for getting CNN up and running, and CNN's first president. Why do you think Ted Turner looked to Reese in specific and what made their partnership so effective in the early years?

[Lisa Napoli]

Well, Reece was an outlier of the networks. He was working on the fringe. One of those great minds who saw the potential of this new technology and had been angry that there were only three broadcast networks that were sort of setting the tone for all the news and entertainment that people saw. Three, including at that point, public television had arrived on the scene too. So Reese saw that there were wormholes into all of this. But what he didn't have was the money and the assets that Ted had. And so both men needed each other, that both men were perfect companions for one another in this project because Ted had the toys and Rhys had the vision. And Rhys was the newsman. He had wanted for so long to bust this triopoly of the broadcast networks. But as I say, a little guy couldn't do that then. And that's what made them perfect for each other.

[Lindsey Graham]

Before cnn, Ted Turner wasn't necessarily interested in the news. So what do you think made him decide to enter the world of cable television with a 24 hour news network?

[Lisa Napoli]

Okay, well Ted Turner, he had a billboard company, he bought radio stations. He didn't like radio, he didn't like selling radio ad time. He thought it was boring, it was repetitive. He had a number of radio stations and then he got out of that and started buying local television stations. That's how he got into cable, because he bought local television stations. And if he hadn't bought those television stations, he would never have been interested in starting cnn. He wanted to start a channel about sports, but somebody had already started doing that. He wanted to start a channel about movies, but somebody had already done that. And so his sales team were sitting around the offices of channel 17 and they were talking about what to do next with this cable satellite marriage. And he's sitting around with his team and the team is like, maybe we should just do news. And Ted's like, who cares about the news? Nobody cares about the news. Why would you want to have a 24 hour news channel?

[Lindsey Graham]

The early days of CNN were not exactly successful. A bit rough of a debut, but they found their footing fast enough. Do you know if there was one moment Perhaps that marked CNN's breakthrough or was it just a gradual process of improvement and growth?

[Lisa Napoli]

So CNN didn't really find its footing very quickly. It took a long time for CNN to grow. Point where it was something that even people watched. It's really important to remember that in the early days of CNN there were very few people who had cable and fewer still who were wired into, who had CNN coming into their homes. So it's not a sexy story to say something came out slowly, but it came out slowly and gradually. And as more people got cable, more people had cnn. And as more people got used to there being something that was news channel which had not existed before, more people got interested in it. But in the very earliest days it was seen as the craziest, most ridiculous idea. Because who would want to watch news all the time? There wasn't, in answer to your question, one particular moment, but there was a series of gradual moments of news stories that happened over the course of the 80s after CNN had launched in 1980, that got people interested in turning on their televisions for breaking news. What we take so for granted now, it just dribbles into our phones day and night all the time. People are addicted to it. Back in the 80s that was not the case. And it took some news events like the space shuttle Challenger exploding, like Tiananmen Square, like the Iraqi war, all of those things to happen for people to get trained, if you will, to turn on their televisions in search of information. Before that you just waited till the nightly news. And of course, well before that you just waited till the newspaper landed on your either doorstep or at the way before that through from the newsboy who you bought it from on the way to work in the morning. So it's a very gradual shift that happened. And all along the way, if Ted hadn't been bankrolling it and been committed to it, it could have easily been shut down because it was not a success.

[Lindsey Graham]

Where do you think Ted Turner's belief in the future success of CNN came from? This is a multi year, multimillion dollar project. How did he stay faithful?

[Lisa Napoli]

Well, he wasn't a news guy to begin with and in fact he said he hated the news to begin with. He was not interested in the news, but he got the quote, unquote religion of news when he saw the power of his project in that he got asked by Fidel Castro to come to Cuba to meet with him. Because Fidel Castro was so dazzled by this. And even though Ted Turner was an avowed conservative at that point, he went and agreed to meet with what he perceived as the enemy because he couldn't believe that somebody actually cared enough about quote, unquote news to watch it, a world leader. And that's when he got that idea that there was power in this, that perhaps to connect the world together in a peaceful way, which is of course ironic since that's absolutely the opposite of what's happened. But he saw that power and that's what made him committed to the importance of both news, transmitting news and transmitting the truth and uniting the world. So he went, in typical Ted Turner fashion, wild with this idea, which at first he was just very lukewarm. Now people like to venerate Ted as this, you know, champion of free speech and all of that. He was not that in the earliest days. That was not what was important to him. It was a business deal.

[Lindsey Graham]

Neither Ted nor Reece come across as especially easy men to work with and their relationship turned sour after a few years. Give us a peek into why Perhaps Ted was a difficult man to work with. Why Ted thought Reese was difficult to work with.

[Lisa Napoli]

Well, they were both strong willed men who had visions for what they wanted. And one was a newsman and the other was not. The other was strictly a businessman. And that was a tough melding of the mind, so to speak, although it helped it get off the ground. But basically, I think, you know, if you look at the history of any sort of organization, you're going to have butting of heads of people who are passionate about the vision. The difference is here that Ted had the money and Reese didn't. So Reese lost. But you know, personality differences are famous in business arrangements. And like I say, in this case it was Ted's toy, so Ted won.

[Lindsey Graham]

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[Lisa Napoli]

The.

[Lindsey Graham]

News is one of the peculiar businesses in which there is a purported code of ethics and an emission that has nothing to do with commerce. How difficult is it to run a media business that has such a mission?

[Lisa Napoli]

Man, that's a really difficult one to articulate briefly in a podcast. You know, if I, if I could solve that problem, you know, now you have people today who were talking about you. We have to have nonprofit news. News must be nonprofit, which is, you know, very starry eyed and idealistic to say. But it doesn't. It's not that simple. When you ask that question, my response is when you look at the story of cnn and this is why I wrote this book that I wrote, it's the history really of not just how CN, how the world became addicted to the teat of 24 hour journalism long before the Internet. It's really the story of how the news has devolved. The news business has devolved over the latter half of the 20th century into an entertainment business and not the pure news business. It didn't happen overnight, it happened gradually. People had been worrying about it since radio started. People always talked about it. When television first began, in the early days of television, the networks were committed and forking over the money to prove it to doing the news business. You know, the entertainment funded the news because they felt the news was important to cover. And however you define news, that's what they did. What's happened over the last latter part of the 20th century with the introduction of more and more television channels, cable and otherwise, is that news has become a competitive entertainment industry. CNN was a news channel until the very day that MSNBC and then Fox launched and then it became an entertainment channel. No one there will say that that's what happened. But it had to happen. Because in the earliest days of CNN, it didn't matter if the anchors were famous, if they were gorgeous, if they were sexy. All the things that you see on television today and certainly in the later part of the 20th century. But once, once there was competition. I wrote a book about McDonald's too. Once there was widespread competition, it didn't matter if you had a good hamburger. You had to become a marketer. And that's the same thing with the news business. That's sort of an adjacent answer to your question. But you know, running a news business, like any business, takes a lot of money. And there's no easy out, there's no magic bullet. And especially once you have a 247 operation, you're operating in the climate that we're operating in today. It just completely changes the landscape and it becomes way more about branding and name brand journalists than it does about the essence of the news.

[Lindsey Graham]

I'm going to ask you to speculate a bit. If we went back in time and Rhys Schoenfeld had stayed on at cnn, do you think that he would have been able to fight for the integrity of the news a little further?

[Lisa Napoli]

Further, if Reese had stuck around, he could have fought for the integrity of the news until the day that MSNBC and Fox started. There is no way that anybody could maintain the high minded principles. Once there was competition that Just couldn't.

[Lindsey Graham]

Our series focuses on the early years of CNN in the 1980s. But I'd love to know how Ted Turner lost control of CNN in the 90s and early 2000s. Can you tell us that story? Story?

[Lisa Napoli]

Well, I can't tell you that story exhaustively because I wrote a book about the creation, the embryonic part. But I can say that it basically boils down to control and money. The industry, as I just said, was going crazy. It was changing radically. There was competition for the first time in the late 90s. And basically Ted sold a piece of the business and lost control. Up until then, up until the moment that he took on the outside investors, he had total control over the people who were all fine, excellent journalists who he had hired to run the business even after Reese left. Bert Reinhart is held up as a God, and that was Reese's number two in replacement. But the minute you give up control and you take on investors, all bets are off. And that's basically what happens.

[Lindsey Graham]

One thing that Ted Turner has never given up is his image as a hometown boy. CNN was set up in Atlanta, Georgia. Its headquarters are still there. Ted owned the Atlanta Braves, the Atlanta Hawks. How do you think he's thought of in Atlanta today?

[Lisa Napoli]

I haven't been in Atlanta for a while. I know there's a street named for him. He doesn't live in Atlanta now. He wasn't born in Atlanta. His father had moved the headquarters of the billboard company that he started to Atlanta, and Ted went with him. But I do when I've spoken at the Atlanta History center. The whole town has been shaped and formed a lot by Coca Cola, but also. And now by Tyler Perry, who has a movie studio there. But also because CNN and attendant other networks started there. There are people even who remember back to channel 17 when Ted had that. So, yeah, I mean, he's. He had a restaurant there. I think it's still open. I'm not sure. So, yes, Atlanta is a place that loves and respects that. Ted took this idea and bought an old country club and turned it into a media empire. And no one ever would have imagined decades ago that Atlanta would become an epicenter for media, which it did.

[Lindsey Graham]

So with the emergence of Fox News and MSNBC, challenging CNN's monopoly of cable news news, how did CNN respond initially?

[Lisa Napoli]

I can't tell you exactly what they did. I think it was just, you know, there are other. Other games in town, and we'll just keep doing what we're doing. And it was when Fox came on with its particularly Decided, focused opinion, even though it didn't call it that point of view. You know, for a long while CNN tried to stay the course and stay the way it had been, which was old fashioned news, not polarizing, divisive cable news as we know of it today. But they were losing that battle and that's why they were forced and as was MSNBC again to switch and become more dedicated to a point of view than it was before. So competition changes everything. And especially when the competition comes in with guns blazing and says it's going to be a particular sort of mindset. You know, CNN didn't respond right away because, you know, it didn't probably, I don't know, I wasn't there. I can't imagine that people, that executives there really believed that what Fox was doing was going to work and work long term and certainly change arguably the course of the entire, not just media landscape but the governance of the United States. The dialogue that used to be more somber and sober. When the competition came, it change changed everything for everyone. But it was how quickly CNN caught up to it that was a problem for it.

[Lindsey Graham]

Actually, I find it interesting that cnn, a channel built to disrupt the big three networks and how news is consumed in the United States, seemed to be unaware that Fox had a very similar mission to disrupt the way America consumed the news.

[Lisa Napoli]

Well, like I say, I wasn't there. I haven't written a book about it and I certainly wasn't privy to the top conversations. But I do know from having worked in media over the last 40 years that people didn't imagine that that kind of attitude toward the news would prevail over the more somber, straightforward old guard, as you might call it today. Point of view that CNN was, was. I, I just, I can't imagine that they did. Obviously the Murdoch and Ted Turner rivalry had gone on for a while. Again, that's not my sort of world. You know, many books have been written about Murdoch. I worked for a part of Fox News before Fox News was the cable channel. It was established mostly by people who left cnn, were hired by Fox News to create a news service of video. It was like a video wire service. This is back when Fox was uniting the television stations it owned and it didn't want to pay CNN for video anymore, so it created its own video news service. And that was completely like cnn. There was no point of view. There were no stars because there was no newscast. It was just a video. There were occasionally reports by reporters and none of that had any sort of point of view. It was only once the Roger Ailes world teed up, geared up, that it changed. But what the people at the highest level were thinking, I don't know. But I do know nobody could believe that that's how news would fall, basically because it has fallen.

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[Lindsey Graham]

We'Ve mentioned a few times over the course of this conversation how news has changed and even devolved and moved away from its truer purpose and into entertainment. Of course, that's just in the realm of the news being delivered and consumed itself. The information that's being received has consequences in everyday lives and especially in the political views of Americans and people everywhere. Yeah, how do you think America's political landscape has changed in the 45 years since CNN debuted as a result of this change, this move towards entertainment?

[Lisa Napoli]

People worried when the broadcast networks began that it was personality driven. You know, you would tune into Walter Cronkite because you liked him better than somebody else. People worried about the disappearance of well informed political dialogue because instead of reading, people were watching the news and watching news, news headlines, not watching deep reported dissected kinds of reports that you would get in a newspaper. So people have been worried about this problem for decades. That's why public television started. Public television was the result of a call of people that they wanted to make sure that more a multiplicity of voices were heard and that there were deeper stories told than were told in the rat attack, that of a typical television news program. So how does that impact our involvement and engagement with our local communities as well as our national and international communities? Immensely. Because if all you're doing is reading or consuming something at a very top level and not digging deep into it, everything is reactionary. Just like I'm responding to you right now, I'm reacting to the question. There's no way to step back and have a reflective thought and think, okay, I just saw this man versus that man. It was usually men debating deep issues of the day, or I just heard them on the radio. And I'm going to step back and I'm going to think about what they said and what it could mean for me before I decide how to vote for them. Instead. Today, it's all visceral. It's all based on looks and sound and how do I react? I said a million times during the pandemic I could read anything I wanted about the pandemic, but I am not an epidemiologist. All I can do is inform myself and make decisions based on how much I'm willing to invest and inform myself. And sadly, I feel like people, even though there's more information available than ever before, aren't informing themselves. They're just reacting to memes and this constant Ferris wheel of stuff that's coming into their brains, their phones, their laps, and they're not educated. There's no depth. And so I think it's deeply impacted how we interact with each other and with people who we'll never meet, who are in charge and making decisions about how our lives go. And certainly Ted Turner and Rhys Schoenfeld didn't imagine that back when they started cnn. Rhys wanted more voices heard, not fewer. He wanted more airtime because that way more people would be hear. And the exact opposite has happened.

[Lindsey Graham]

We have focused a lot on Ted Turner and Rhys Schoenfeld for good reasons. But I'm wondering if there were any other individuals that you would single out as critical to the success of CNN's early years.

[Lisa Napoli]

There are two people. The very first cable television star was Bill Tush. And Bill Tush appeared on who was critical in Ted Turner's Life. He had a team of people working on this little scrappy, left for dead uhf station called channel 17 that only existed at first because it was playing old movies that were licensed for that purpose. And Ted had the vision to sign up local Sports teams. That's why he owned the Braves and other teams, because he recognized that he needed to have sports content, which is not a word anybody used back then. And to fulfill FCC requirements, he had to do some sort of public service. And there was an announcer who worked at the local radio station named Bill Tush, who was handsome and put on a suit and started reading news headlines. And basically they aired it in the middle of the night because they didn't want to waste airtime. And Ted was visionary enough to see that people needed to have a television station on 24 hours a day and all they were doing was running movies anyway, and he thought nobody was watching. But they started getting an avalanche of mail in response to this guy by Bill Tush, who was reading jokey goofball headlines, news headlines, all as an obligation toward their FCC requirement. And he became famous as Ted was floating the Channel 17 signal all over the country. He got fan mail from all over the country. As far away as Alaska, people were watching channel 17 before it became the superstation. So Bill Tush was the very first cable star and he helped draw attention. He was the symbol of channel 17 to all across the land. Another person who was hugely important to Ted's building of his empire was a guy named Ted Kavanaugh, who was an old guard newsman. He looked like a detective, and he was the real drill sergeant who ran the newsroom on behalf of Reece. And people loved and revered this man who would stand on the desk and give rounds calls to everybody there to convince them, you know, yes, nobody's watching, but we're doing this high minded, greater good. In the early days of cnn. So those two people were intractably, indelibly important to the building of the Ted Turner empire.

[Lindsey Graham]

This is a business show. What business lessons do you think our listeners can learn from Ted Turner and Rhys Schoenfeld's time at cnn?

[Lisa Napoli]

Well, well, you can learn a lot from Ted Turner, who took a thriving business that his father left him when he committed suicide and basically ran with it. He took that business and didn't just coast, he wanted to grow, and he did. He ventured out into other media and he wasn't afraid of tough challenges. And everything about Ted Turner is sort of textbook entrepreneur. All businessmen are not entrepreneurs. All entrepreneurs have to be business people. But he was, is just an incredible visionary in terms of not allowing things to crush him that would have crushed other people. He triumphed over adversity many times, including the creation of cnn, when the place almost, you know, fell apart. Even even before it got off the ground. Reese was not a businessman. Reese was a newsman. So he's a different sort of animal.

[Lindsey Graham]

Lisa Napoli, thanks so much for speaking with me today on Business Movers.

[Lisa Napoli]

Thank you so much for asking.

[Lindsey Graham]

From Wonder Eat this is the final part of our series on Ted Turner, Reese Schoenfeld and cnn on the next season of Business Movers, British entrepreneur Richard Branson plants the seeds of what will become a billion dollar business empire. But his eccentric ideas and willingness to break the rules lands him in hot water with the law. If you like Business Movers, you can unlock exclusive episodes found nowhere else on Wondery and access new episodes early and ad free. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a [e-mail] survey survey if you'd like to learn more about Ted Turner, Reese Schoenfeld and cnn, we recommend Me and Ted against the World by Reese Schoenfeld Media man by Ken Owletta and CNN the Inside Story by Hank Whittemore A quick note about our dramatizations in most cases, we can't know everything that happened, but all our reenactments are based on historical research. Business Movers is hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship Audio editing by Mohammed Shazib sound design by Molly Bach. Our supervising sound designer is Matthew Filler. Music by Thrum. This episode is written and researched by Owen Paul Nichols Coordinating producer Jake Sampson senior producer Scott Reeves. Executive producers are William Simpson for airship and Aaron O'Flaherty, Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louie for Wondery.

[Narrator]

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