CNN is the devil’s playground. They invented the concept of two talking heads from the left and two from the right—screaming at each other. That show was Crossfire, and it exemplifies the dark half of Ted Turner’s legacy.
Long before CNN, Public TV ran a program hosted by conservative William F. Buckley called "Firing Line" which featured heated discussions between Buckley and his usually center and left of center guests. It was interesting and informative but also (usually) civil and respectful.
You are so right "Crossfire" changed all that.
And in the 1970s "60 Minutes" used to feature a segment with Shana Alexander vs. James J. Kilpatrick which, while not a shouting match, always carried a level level of understated disdain such that Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd could satirize them in one of the classic sketches on "Saturday Night Live"
Turner and CNN had a much more direct effect that led to Trump. By monetizing news coverage, they created an incentive to keep viewers pinned to the channel. Thus motivated, they quickly found that the opinion got more engagement than the straight reporting. So opinion got mixed in more and more until that's all there was. Also little things like running a breaking news chyron below everything no matter how not breaking or not news it is. People noticed they weren't getting the straight goods. The erosion of trust in media started. By the time Trump came along, all he had to do was coin Fake News to render himself immune to all negative coverage. Today the epistemological rot is so bad that viewers feel free to dismiss any story that doesn't confirm their priors.
Us 80's latchkey kids probably watched more TBS and WGN than anything else after school and during summers. I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Laverne and Shirley, Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch....
Bummer that I got to only see NL teams play during those years, due to their being no interleague games until 1997. This was before ESPN was available on one of the "13" channels.
TBS was also an early broadcaster of the NBA. My Trail Blazers were rarely on as usually it was the Eastern Conference shown. But still, good memories of hanging out in the basement with the old early 70's color TV.
Due to my age I only ever knew the "attitude" era of wrestling. WWF Raw was the baseline when I was an impressionable youth. It is interesting to draw the connection between that cultural escalation in media and our current state of affairs. When satire becomes reality I guess. We are just a few elections away from Idiocracy...
I grew up outside of Atlanta, and Ted Turner had a huge impact on everyone. I grew up watching sitcoms in constant rotation on TBS. He owned the Braves! And the Hawks! And the rights to Gone with the Wind! My company held a Christmas lunch at Ted's in Midtown, and Ted himself walked in. Truly a giant in our town. RIP, Ted.
Great column. Former CNNer here, who arrived just as Ted's influence was fading (AOL was about to swallow Time Warner, and it all became product). Not only was the man full of ideas, but he was dedicated to Atlanta, my home for 30 years. What a towering figure.
"He'll be missed" doesn't do justice to the impact he had.
I worked in advertising in the early 1980's when Turner was rolling out CNN. He came to my (rather large) consumer products company client to tell us about the plans. He was truly "The Mouth of the South" - - boastful, loud, braggadocious and many people left the meeting scoffing that he was nuts and his ideas for a 24-hour news channel. But, as we all know, he kept going with his plans and he ended up as a world-class visionary. We've lost someone truly great.
Not Sonny! He hasn't finished changing the world yet. (In fact, and I don't mean to put a lot of pressure on him, it seems like he's still got a lot of work to do.)
TCM is the sanity island that I go to when overwhelmed by the horrors of the daily news cycle. The technical artistry behind classic films is amazing even when the storytelling can be a bit heavy handed on the good vs evil dynamic. Thank Dog the colorization of classic B&W movies never caught on.
He was also one of the first to buy up large Montana ranches and with Jane Fonda, his wife of the time, turned it into something of a private wilderness area. It was not well received by his neighbors, but definitely presaged what was to come for Montana privately held lands.
He also bought up a lot of land in Nebraska's Sand Hills (some of the last pristine prairie in North America) and owned one of the largest and most genetically diverse herds of bison in the US. Fingers crossed he'd made arrangements for all this land to remain protected after his death!
A good review of the life and times of Ted Turner. He also won the America's Cup sailing race and gained the nickname "Captain Outrageous."
When my family and I went to Atlanta in the 1990s, there were two places we wanted to visit - CNN and the Coca-Cola Museum, both landmarks of American culture.
CNN is the devil’s playground. They invented the concept of two talking heads from the left and two from the right—screaming at each other. That show was Crossfire, and it exemplifies the dark half of Ted Turner’s legacy.
Long before CNN, Public TV ran a program hosted by conservative William F. Buckley called "Firing Line" which featured heated discussions between Buckley and his usually center and left of center guests. It was interesting and informative but also (usually) civil and respectful.
You are so right "Crossfire" changed all that.
And in the 1970s "60 Minutes" used to feature a segment with Shana Alexander vs. James J. Kilpatrick which, while not a shouting match, always carried a level level of understated disdain such that Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd could satirize them in one of the classic sketches on "Saturday Night Live"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c91XUyg9iWM&t=27s
Turner and CNN had a much more direct effect that led to Trump. By monetizing news coverage, they created an incentive to keep viewers pinned to the channel. Thus motivated, they quickly found that the opinion got more engagement than the straight reporting. So opinion got mixed in more and more until that's all there was. Also little things like running a breaking news chyron below everything no matter how not breaking or not news it is. People noticed they weren't getting the straight goods. The erosion of trust in media started. By the time Trump came along, all he had to do was coin Fake News to render himself immune to all negative coverage. Today the epistemological rot is so bad that viewers feel free to dismiss any story that doesn't confirm their priors.
Us 80's latchkey kids probably watched more TBS and WGN than anything else after school and during summers. I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Laverne and Shirley, Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch....
Bummer that I got to only see NL teams play during those years, due to their being no interleague games until 1997. This was before ESPN was available on one of the "13" channels.
TBS was also an early broadcaster of the NBA. My Trail Blazers were rarely on as usually it was the Eastern Conference shown. But still, good memories of hanging out in the basement with the old early 70's color TV.
Due to my age I only ever knew the "attitude" era of wrestling. WWF Raw was the baseline when I was an impressionable youth. It is interesting to draw the connection between that cultural escalation in media and our current state of affairs. When satire becomes reality I guess. We are just a few elections away from Idiocracy...
I grew up outside of Atlanta, and Ted Turner had a huge impact on everyone. I grew up watching sitcoms in constant rotation on TBS. He owned the Braves! And the Hawks! And the rights to Gone with the Wind! My company held a Christmas lunch at Ted's in Midtown, and Ted himself walked in. Truly a giant in our town. RIP, Ted.
Great column. Former CNNer here, who arrived just as Ted's influence was fading (AOL was about to swallow Time Warner, and it all became product). Not only was the man full of ideas, but he was dedicated to Atlanta, my home for 30 years. What a towering figure.
"He'll be missed" doesn't do justice to the impact he had.
I worked in advertising in the early 1980's when Turner was rolling out CNN. He came to my (rather large) consumer products company client to tell us about the plans. He was truly "The Mouth of the South" - - boastful, loud, braggadocious and many people left the meeting scoffing that he was nuts and his ideas for a 24-hour news channel. But, as we all know, he kept going with his plans and he ended up as a world-class visionary. We've lost someone truly great.
This was linked from Morning Shots as, "[...] A man who changed the world, remembers SONNY BUNCH." I was like Holy shit, Sonny Bunch is dead?!
Not Sonny! He hasn't finished changing the world yet. (In fact, and I don't mean to put a lot of pressure on him, it seems like he's still got a lot of work to do.)
I remember back in the 90's and early 2000's Headline News and the Weather Channel were high on my list of favorites.
I never watched a colorized movie, but I do have that 4k Casablanca.
TCM is the sanity island that I go to when overwhelmed by the horrors of the daily news cycle. The technical artistry behind classic films is amazing even when the storytelling can be a bit heavy handed on the good vs evil dynamic. Thank Dog the colorization of classic B&W movies never caught on.
I cannot compare him to the lumpy non physical trumpy, the dud from queens, ted had a little more energy.
He was also one of the first to buy up large Montana ranches and with Jane Fonda, his wife of the time, turned it into something of a private wilderness area. It was not well received by his neighbors, but definitely presaged what was to come for Montana privately held lands.
He also bought up a lot of land in Nebraska's Sand Hills (some of the last pristine prairie in North America) and owned one of the largest and most genetically diverse herds of bison in the US. Fingers crossed he'd made arrangements for all this land to remain protected after his death!
Turner may not have created Donald Trump, but he most certainly ushered in echo chambers. Which....
But at the time when I first got cable, I thought that narrow-casting was a great idea and noted that he owned most of the quality channels.
A good review of the life and times of Ted Turner. He also won the America's Cup sailing race and gained the nickname "Captain Outrageous."
When my family and I went to Atlanta in the 1990s, there were two places we wanted to visit - CNN and the Coca-Cola Museum, both landmarks of American culture.