CNN founder Ted Turner dies

[0:00] he broke every mold he changed the world known as the mouth of the south and captain outrageous [0:06] ted turner built a media empire that changed cable news forever i didn't have any upper [0:12] limits to how far we could go champion philanthropist environmentalist i don't know how to [0:19] quit it's not in my genes but growing up wasn't easy for ted born in cincinnati ohio in 1938 [0:28] his parents sent him to boarding school when he was just four years old i didn't like boarding [0:33] school i wanted to be home ted's little sister whom he adored died of lupus at 17. about two years later [0:43] ted dropped out of brown university he'd been studying classics until his father cut off the [0:49] money he thought i was wasting my time so he went to work for his dad's billboard company but tragedy [0:56] struck again when his father killed himself he went against uh everything that he that he taught me [1:03] you know to be courageous and uh hang in there ted took over the family business and coped with the [1:11] loss by working even harder he said uh set your goals so high that you can't achieve them in your [1:17] lifetime when ted wasn't working he turned to the sport he loved sailing we gotta go as fast as we can [1:24] here and won the sport's top race the america's cup i had worked very hard it took me a number of [1:31] years to become a champion he put that same drive into expanding the business in 1970 ted bought a [1:38] struggling tv station it was a broken down uhf television station in atlanta he was going to [1:44] transform uhf television into uh this new world of satellite television ted renamed the station wtbs [1:53] and it became the country's first super station what ted made happen uh was just as important [2:00] as the internet revolution of the 90s and 2000s but starting out ted needed content he bought the [2:06] atlanta braves and broadcast their games nationwide the atlanta brave the braves became america's team [2:14] when we bought them in 1976 they were terrible by 1995 ted and his team were world series champs [2:22] as he built the super station he set his sights even higher on a 24-hour news channel i i worked [2:29] till seven o'clock and when i got home the news was uh was over so i missed television news completely and [2:36] i figured there were lots of people like me people did look upon that as a foolish uh idea that was uh [2:44] destined for failure but they underestimated ted turnoff most of the leaders of the world thought ted was nuts [2:52] we sign on on june one and barring satellite problems in the future we won't be signing off [2:58] until the world ends we'll be on we will cover it live i dedicate the news channel for america the cable [3:10] news network take a letter mike qm cnn aired its first broadcast on june 1st 1980 good evening i'm david [3:18] walker and i'm lois hart now here's the news it took five years to turn a profit i lived for 20 years [3:25] in my office he was a one of us i mean he would be in his house coat down having breakfast in the hard [3:30] news cafe and we'll get better by the end of the week critics called it chicken noodle news [3:36] but the gulf war would give cnn the respect it deserved [3:40] it was the first time a war was broadcast live on television and it was only on cnn [3:50] i still believe that that was the greatest scoop in the history of journalism you can see her there [3:56] she's ted didn't care as much about ratings as he did about being the most trusted name in news [4:04] ted also cared about the world over a 10-year period he donated a billion dollars to the united nations [4:11] i'm no poorer than i was nine months ago and the world is a lot better off and he expanded his [4:17] empire launching networks like tnt and turner classic movies in his personal life ted was married [4:24] and divorced twice with five children before he finally met his match jane fonda she agreed to have [4:31] dinner with me for me it was love at first sight i can't ever forget the reasons that made me fall in [4:38] love with him i've never met any human being that thinks the way ted does ted was a visionary a titan [4:46] even time magazine's man of the year but in 1996 he sold his networks to time warner he got almost [4:53] eight billion dollars i said ted if you sell you will no longer be captain of your own ship ted turner [5:02] ted five years later time warner merged with aol and ted was out ted used the description i've been [5:11] fired ted got shafted and it hurt it was more than just a company to me it was um it was a way of life [5:21] he lost his empire and the love of his life after 10 years of marriage he and jane parted ways but you [5:29] love her still yeah to this very day to this very day but ted never gave up his final act [5:37] saving the planet he created the un foundation and the nuclear threat initiative on his montana [5:45] ranch he made it his mission to save the bison hi well you never go home do you and he opened [5:52] restaurants to ensure their survival his love of the outdoors has made him perhaps the number one [5:59] environmentalist that i've ever known before his 80th birthday ted revealed he had lewy body dementia [6:07] a progressive disease he spent his final years treasuring private moments his ranch and his family [6:15] he wants to know that when he goes out it will be with the love of his children and grandchildren [6:21] you can never take away what he created and what he did we have never seen a man quite like ted [6:28] turner before on this planet and i don't think we'll ever see another one like him again there's the [6:37] amazing american success story the businessman the visionary the revolutionary who created really [6:42] a media revolution and you know every single thing that followed him anything in the 24 7 genre [6:48] started with ted turner everything was a copy if i dare say so myself and not the best copies he was [6:54] the original and he made us all proud and he made us all hopeful and he made us all strive for his vision [7:02] of a better world whether it was in news or whether it was in the philanthropy he was the first of the [7:07] modern day philanthropists after the carnegies and the melons and the rockefellas of their generation [7:12] as wolf just pointed out when he gave a billion dollars to the un foundation and then bill gates [7:17] and then warren buffett and then michael bloomberg and all the others joined in uh to to to follow in [7:23] that incredibly noble pursuit uh he was big huge on climate and that's a global issue obviously he was way [7:31] ahead of the uh curve on on climate and climate mitigation and i remember asking him in one of [7:36] my last interviews with him what would you say to the young people who look up to you and who want [7:41] to make their own first billion dollars how would you suggest they do that now and he said climate [7:46] green technology the green economy he was so sure and he was always so absolutely right and as as wolf was [7:54] saying you know he was somebody who believed in breaking down the barriers between peoples and and between [8:00] nations i remember when i was still you know in 1980s in new york and i was climbing up the ranks i [8:06] started in september 1983 in atlanta and i remember when he banned the word foreign and i was absolutely [8:13] devastated i wanted to be a foreign correspondent like edward r morrow and all those people and he [8:18] brought the word international and it wasn't just a little thing it was because he didn't want to [8:23] drive you know a wedge into people by calling them foreign and he didn't want to have separation [8:28] imagine that kind of leader uh and what we're left with right now when everything's about you know [8:34] weaponization of identities and beliefs and all the rest of it he was exactly the opposite when he took [8:41] cnn international in 1985 what he did was not just be the first ever global tv 24 7 uh behemoth network [8:51] but he also chipped down the walls of states and authoritarian uh regulated media so all these [9:00] nations where the people could only see what they were fed by their authoritarian leaders and i'm now [9:05] talking about that part of the world um you know he gave them something else he opened their eyes to [9:11] the rest of the world and i thought that was absolutely fundamental and he said to us when we were [9:16] in the gulf war he said look i'm not going to force anybody to be in baghdad which of course was the [9:22] enemy capital for the united states we had been reporting in saudi arabia and around and we also had [9:29] distinguished ourselves as cnn the reporters there in baghdad but when it came to the war you had the [9:35] president you had the you know chairman of the joint chiefs you had all these people call tom johnson [9:39] our president and say you better get your people out of baghdad because it's going to be real and [9:44] they might get killed and tom basically went to ted and said what he had heard and ted said look i'm [9:52] not going to force anybody it'll be volunteer but we must be in baghdad in other words we must um tell [10:00] all sides of the story and how incredibly important is that in today's world when when we tell all sides [10:07] of the story we can be accused of taking sides no we're telling all sides of the story without fear [10:13] nor favor whether it's in the middle east whether it's you know on climate whatever it might be [10:17] whether it's in the united states and elsewhere so look um remember when giants strode the world ted [10:23] turner was a giant and he risked his life in many occasions including in his you know swashbuckling [10:29] sailor days winning the america's cup but also the fastnet race one of the most dangerous ever around [10:34] the isle of wight the one the race he won that year there was more than a dozen people killed in a [10:40] massive storm there so he was brave he was i was going to say ballsy but he was really um he said [10:47] it like it was and like it is and we were his willing foot soldiers and i think he changed not [10:53] he was really um he said it was he was really um he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said it was he said 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