OU alumnus Ed Turner has stocked his CNN staffwith aggressive Sooner go-getters . The Other Mr. Turner at CNN hen calling the executive News Network, TBS' most ambitious Ted Turner launched his full-time offices of the Turner Broad- and surprisingly successful venture. news experiment, the media skeptics casting System in Atlanta, While Ted Turner is busy making were unanimous. Labeling CNN Wit pays to enunciate. A mumbled re- news, Ed Turner concentrates on mak- "Turner's Folly" and "Chicken Noodle quest can get you either Ted Turner, ing the news available, 24 hours a day, News," the major networks predicted the flamboyant, controversial favorite to 31 .5 million cable viewers abject failure. No one would talk to son of the South who heads this com- worldwide . They are both very good CNN, they reasoned; no one would ad- munications/sports empire, or Ed at their jobs . vertise; no one would watch. Turner's Turner, the hard-driving trans- Four-and-one-half years ago, when profitable WTBS, Atlanta's cable-wise planted Sooner whose considerable Superstation, would never be able to journalistic talents have made him sustain the losses sure to be incurred the number two operative at Cable By CAROL J . BURR by CNN . Continued 1985 WINTER 11

done in Washington . At United Press International Television News in New York, his next professional stop, he found a news organization of sorts al- ready in place, but one which "had not yet entered the electronic world." "In this day and age, you ordinarily don't have a chance to build a news group from nothing," he explains, "be- cause they're usually in place. You come aboard, and you run it, add to it or take away from it. I was fortunate to have the experience of setting up an organization from scratch." When UPITN was sold, Turner moved to "CBS Morning News," back to Channel 9 in Oklahoma City and again to Washington, but his two bosses in New York, Reese Schonwald and Burt Reinhardt, remembered his knack for organization when they signed on to turn Ted Turner's vision- ary CNN into reality. "Burt and Reese introduced me to The most recent ofthe OUjournalists tojoin Ed Turner's Sooner "twang" sessions Ted at halftime of an Atlanta Hawks at CNN in Atlanta is Bella Shaw, '76, now the weekday afternoon anchor . basketball game," Ed Turner says, re- calling that the team's owner was jumping up and down on the bench But amid these dire predictions, a talked himself into the job of news di- next to the coach . "He was a better group of hard-news TV journalists rector and put together a staffof new- show than the game. He just assumed were preparing to join Ted Turner's comers, many of whom have gone on that I was already working for him, crusade. Among them was a 1957 to become major names in the broad- although we hadn't talked salary or University of Oklahoma journalism cast business. He hired NBC's Connie even what my job was going to be." graduate from Bartlesville, Eddie Chung right off the University of The job was CNN managing editor, Sims Turner, who, after more than 20 Maryland campus, brought CBS' Bob in charge of setting up news bureaus years as one of the broadcast business' Schieffer from Dallas, and recruited in Washington, New York, Los peripatetic newsmen, was ready to "CBS Morning News" movie critic Pat Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and San make a long-term commitment . Collins, Bis-Net anchor Merrill Comer Francisco, hiring assignment editors "There were about a dozen of us," and Mike Buchanan, former Okla- and reporters, finding stations that Ed Turner recalls, "400 million years homa Cityan now an Emmy Award- would exchange their local coverage ago - or yesterday . I'm not sure winner in Washington. for CNN's worldwide service. Today which. It was a crusade. Absolutely . He pioneered the 10 o'clock news in 170 stations in the United States have No one knew whether it would work, EST Washington, where prime-time such an arrangement with CNN, but but the challenge was too great not to shows end at 11 p.m. when most Ok- the first ones were hard to come by. have a go at it. The game was really lahomans are heading for bed. An old "A lot of stations didn't want any- worth playing to see if we could make buddy from OU days, Washington thing to do with us because we were it work, and so far, we have ." public relations man John Campbell, cable, i .e. the enemy," Turner says. Ed Turner had some unique profes- jokes that Turner received all kinds "Others didn't think we'd last, so why sional qualifications which made him of credit for being innovative when he bother? It really amounted to calling an ideal addition to the hardy band of actually was just an Oklahoma boy on old friendships made over 20 or 25 broadcasting pioneers. He had started who thought that the news was sup- years around the country." news services from scratch before. posed to come on at 10 o'clock. CNN was selling a whole new con- His first job out of Oklahoma, after "Within a couple of years, we had cept in news programming, all day a stint with Channel 9 in Oklahoma the highest-rated news show in town, every day -indepth interviewing and City, was with the Metromedia outlet local or network," Turner recalls. "We background features, scheduling so in Washington, D .C ., WTTG-TV, a beat all of them - even old Walter flexible as to allow staying with a station with no news department of (Cronkite)." story until it was told completely its own whose news broadcasts were Soon Turner was corporate news di- whether it took minutes, hours or of the rip-and-read variety straight rector for Metromedia, repeating in days, an emphasis on professional from the teletype machines. Turner New York and elsewhere what he had news gathering and reporting rather 1 2 SOONER MAGAZINE

Mike Boettcher, '78, who now covers El Salvador for NBC, Tony Clark, three-degree OU graduate, wentfrom Oklahoma was one of Ed Turner's first Oklahoma City recruits at CNN. City's Channel 9 to Dallas, where he is CNN's bureau chief

than media superstars in the anchor them, CNN experienced sudden accep- insists. "CBS has three or four booth. Ted Turner's dream was hard tance . "We could give them time that thousand people, and they all shoot to put togetherand even harder to sell . they just simply couldn't get on the for that half hour with Uncle Dan Ed Turner encountered his greatest other networks," Ed Turner explains. (Rather). Anything else is failure. You obstacles in his old stomping grounds "The networks do 22 minutes and can imagine that a lot of them never ofWashington, D.C., where to this day 30 seconds of news at night. Their make the air." there is no cable television . morning shows have gone from being By way of contrast, CNN em- "Washington is really behind the hard-news shows to very soft, fluffy, phasizes the message instead of the times," Turner insists. "It's like being featurey kinds of broadcasts with five messenger. "We have 49 anchors," a foreign correspondent in your own or seven minutes worth of news in Turner says. "If we paid them all capital. We finally had to give the Rather's salary, we could bankrupt Pentagon a satellite dish so they could Switzerland. People don't watch us for see us - this little bitty company in "CBS has three or four our anchors; they watch us because Georgia and the Pentagon with all the thousand people, and they the news is there, they trust it and it's trillions of dollars they've got." convenient to them." Turner Broadcasting had to file law- all shoot for that half And at CNN the employees learn suits to combat CNN's exclusion from hour with Uncle Dan. the broadcasting business from start the White House pool coverage. "It's Anything else is failure." to finish . At the entry level, Turner much easier now that we've got 31 .5 likens working for CNN to going to million subscribers and worldwide ex- graduate school and getting paid for it. posure," Ed Turner admits, "but we're them. When I produced the "CBS "I wish CNN had been around when still the new kids on the block. With Morning News," it was one hour of I got out of college," he says. "These four or five thousand journalists in hard news with Hughes Rudd . We kids can be here a few months and all Washington all clamoring for inter- didn't get the ratings, but we had of a sudden they're in Cairo with views, it's a question of `Who are they? news. Now it is chitchat and lengthy cameras on their shoulders chasing Why do I need to give them my time?'" interviews - which is fine - but not some army, or they're in the Sudan, When a satellite dish went up on the way it was. or they're in the Antarctic. You can't Capitol Hill and congressmen dis- "Working journalists in television do that working for the other net- covered how easily the voters back at the network level today don't have works, and CNN attracts a lot ofjour- home could turn in to cable and to a great outlet for their wares," Turner nalists for that reason ." Continued 1985 WINTER 13

Pam Olson, who left the OU campus in 1972 tojoin Oklahoma City's Channel 9, is the CNN Washington bureau's correspon- dent on the House side of Capitol Hill. This photo was taken as she covered the Reagan re-election campaign last fall.

Turner receives from 500 to 1,000 only an occasional break for a head- scriber mark and Madison Avenue ac- job applications a week for the 700 to line or a little bit of weather. cepted cable as a fact oflife that they'd 800 jobs in the Atlanta headquarters "That's when it's really a great chal- better learn how to use, no one inter- and the 1,000 to 1,200 assignments lenge. It's fun to do what we do because nally has had any doubt." worldwide . He feels that being non- the others just can't do it," Turner CNN was still in the red when Ted union gives his organization an ad- says. Even the commercials take sec- Turner took another big gamble to vantage over the competition in de- ond billing. "We try to get the commer- stave off a competing service which veloping a highly competent staffwith cials in whenever we can -and if we one of the major networks had de- a wide range of capabilities. can't, we can't. On some of the live signed to put him out of business. In "We can be a lot more flexible, be- trials we've done, we've just had to June 1982, he launched CNN2, a sepa- cause one person here can sit down at drop them right and left." rate 24-hour headline news service a typewriter and write the story, run With such a view of the broadcast- available to both cable operators and the camera in the field, bring that tape ing industry's lifeblood, it is under- individual television stations . CNN2 in and edit it at the electronic edit standable why the "experts," took a went head-to-head with a similar ser- bench - and for all I care, go on the pessimistic view of CNN's life expec- vice, Satellite NewsChannels, offered air and report it. That can be eight tancy. With an initial investment of as a virtual give-away by ABC/West- different union jurisdictions in New $50 million and an operating budget inghouse. TBS won the war in October York . If we have to move fast on a estimated by Time magazine at one- 1983 just as CNN had begun to turn story, we've got people who know how fourth that of any other major net- a profit. Ted Turner bought out SNC to do four or five or a dozen different work, CNN faced a monumental task for $25 million to take it off the air things. If everybody is marshaled on in holding on until cable subscribers and absorb its subscribers. Temporar- a major story, nobody can touch us." and advertising could erase a monthly ily back in the red, CNN tookjust over Flexibility doesn't stop with the deficit variously reported at between a year to regain its money-making capabilities of the staff at CNN, how- $2 and $3 million. Even the staff had status. ever. For all practical purposes, the uncertain moments, although Ted "We'll be one of the surviving cable cable newsmen have thrown away the Turner himself claims never to have services," Ed Turner says confidently. clock in an industry enslaved by split- lost confidence in CNN's ultimate suc- "We've got 31.5 million subscribers second timing. With what Ed Turner cess. and a 35 percent penetration of the calls "major-major stories," such as "For the first three or four months, U.S. By 1990 we should be right at 60 the Solidarity uprising in Poland or we all talked among ourselves and percent in the U.S. plus the the Beirut barracks massacre, CNN wondered," Ed Turner admits . "But worldwide." can broadcast 30 hours straight with once we got over that 10 million sub- Efficiency of CNN's operation was 14 SOONER MAGAZINE

cited by Ted Turner in a Penthouse and shortly we'll be in Hong Kong, just cover the conventions like any magazine interview as a major reason Singapore and Manila . We are get- other news story, and it will be left to for the cable service's survival . The ting ready to lease two more transpon- CNN and C-Span ." cable entrepreneur insists that while ders for the Pacific Basin and Africa Some of Turner's journalistic deci- the networks have thousands of em- and a transponder for Europe, so we'll sions have brought him considerable ployees packaging 12 hours of news a be broadcasting to the United King- public attention . He has appeared on day to be fed to 200 affiliates at a cost dom and the Continent . ABC's "Nightline" and the PBS of $700 to $900 million annually, "We just started serving Canada the "McNeil-Lehrer Report" to defend Turner Broadcasting uses hundreds of first of September," he adds . As a part CNN's live coverage of the New Bed- employees to feed out 48 hours ofnews of that deal CNN picked up trade-out ford gang-rape trial and ongoing ef- a day to almost 4,000 affiliates for $70 coverage from the CBC, a huge broad- forts to take cameras into the court- million. casting organization much like Great room for the McMartin child abuse "Because we don't have all the Britain's BBC . "We got their coverage, trial in California. money in the world, we're forced to live, of the Pope's 12-day visit there CNN sought an exception to the ban think differently," Ed Turner ex- at no cost to us when the other net- on cameras in federal courtrooms for plains. "CBS or NBC can charter 15 works were spending a million dollars the Westmoreland vs. CBS libel trial, Learjets, keep them on a runway just plus." but the network's request was denied. in case - at $4,000 a day . I gotta fig- The journalistic decisions on what The McMartin case is still in the pre- ure out a way to get that picture some to cover and how are left largely to Ed liminary stage, and camera coverage other way." Turner . He moved up to the senior vice has yet to be determined . However, His favorite story of CNN news presidency at CNN when Burt Rein- CNN did carry the Carol Burnett vs. gathering ingenuity stems from the hardt succeeded Reese Schonwald as the National Enquirer libel trial. uprising in Poland when Russian "Is the presence of the camera so "winter maneuvers" cut the country intrusive that it distorts?" Turner off from the world, shutting down the "Oklahoma journalists asks . "Oklahoma journalists pio- wire services, even replacing War- neered the use of the camera in the saw's local news anchors with tunic- pioneered the use of the courtroom . They know that's not the clad military announcers . camera in the courtroom. case . The camera is quickly forgotten "We found two guys living near the The camera is quickly after idle curiosity. Most of the critics Polish border with a little TV set with forgotten . . . Courtroom have not seen the camera in a court- rabbit ears who could get the Warsaw room or watched the coverage at TV picture," Turner says . "We took sketch artists are far home . They don't know what they are that picture off their rabbit ears, more distracting." talking about. Courtroom sketch art- microwaved it to Copenhagen, land- ists are far more distracting than a lined to Rome, uplinked on the satel- single camera over in the corner shoot- lite from Rome to Maine, downlinked the company's president . Turner and ing with natural light." to landline through New York Reinhardt, who sets CNN's business Turner believes that the media it- through the Washington bureau, policy and makes the financial deci- self will be the sternest watchdog of where we had a translator, then to At- sions, have worked together in one video courtroom coverage when and if lanta and back up on the satellite to way or another for years . "Burt was it is permitted . "No one is going to be the world. And it came up like that!" my boss at UPITN," Turner says, "and a tougher guardian than those of us Turner snaps his fingers. before that, when I was head of news who are trying to get this thing ac- "People watching CNN could get for Metromedia, I was his biggest cepted," he insists, pointing out that just what the people of Warsaw were client . He gives me a lot of leeway on to protect the victim's privacy, CNN seeing and hearing about the fate of what to cover. Of course when the didn't photograph the New Bedford their country . That's real drama. And price tag gets to the 5,000-10,000 buck rape victim entering and leaving the however long the Warsaw newscast level, I damn sure talk to him about it. courthouse as the other networks did. was, we ran it." "Two years ago I began lobbying for "We're not about to create a monster Such worldwide coverage is becom- more gavel-to-gavel, all-out coverage that makes the public despise us when ing more and more routine for CNN. of the two conventions, and he said we're really looking for public sup- With bureaus already established in 'O .K.' We budgeted $15 million for port ." London, Rome, Cairo, Tel Aviv, that, and for a small company, that's For all its public attention, Ed Damascus, Moscow and Tokyo, CNN a lot of dough. But it paid off. The Turner maintains that sen- is in the process of adding bureaus in others didn't do much, and if you had sationalism is a small fraction of the Paris, Bonn and Peking . And with any interest at all in politics or the broadcast month for CNN when com- worldwide coverage comes worldwide conventions, CNN was the place to pared to "the hour after mindless hour broadcasting outlets. "We're already watch. And the ratings doubled and of Congress and God-knows-what" in Australia, all down through the tripled, which was nice . Four years that his network carries . But even Caribbean into Latin America," Ed from now, I don't think you'll see the that small amount seems somewhat Turner says . "We're seen in Tokyo, anchors down from New York. They'll out of sync with the widely publicized

1985 WINTER 1 5

assumption that Ted Turner, in his know quite what to do with hybrid in town," he explains . "They spend the crusade against the anti-family, anti- journalism/television news majors," money for the equipment, for the re- patriotic major networks, was estab- Turner recalls, "so I had a lot of porters and the production staff. One lishing CNN as a "good news" net- straight journalism courses ." wants to beat the other, and that work. After completing his degree in 1957, breeds excellence . The quality of the "We never talked about that," Ed Turner worked at OU under Ned reporting and visual production from Turner insists . "News is news. People Hockman as a producer of documen- Oklahoma City and Tulsa is better see a lot more good news than they tary films, where he learned film and than New York, better than Los think; it just isn't labeled `good news.' film editing while sharpening his Angeles . And the weather forecasting If you get into that trap, does it mean writing skills with Dwight Swain. He in Oklahoma is used as the bench- that everything you don't label as still feels that the education and ex- mark around the U.S., generally `good news' is `bad news'? You don't perience he gained at the University acknowledged to be about the best come out with some silly grin and say of Oklahoma gave him an advantage there is ." `This is good news!' Youjust report it." over other television journalists of his One of his first recruits from Okla- Ted Turner's well-known tendency age elsewhere in the country . homa City was Mike Boettcher, '78, to "coach" as evidenced in the manage- "I always swore that if I ever got in who left CNN this year to cover El ment of the athletic teams he owns a management position, I would hire Salvador for NBC, but the general apparently does not spill over into the from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Ne- turnover rate in middle-level person- day-to-day operation of his broadcast- braska, all down through the middle nel on up is slight . Among the Soon- ing empire . "Ted gives us the money strip where I know the best people ers currently in CNN staff positions and leaves us alone," Ed Turner in- are Pam Olson, '72, Capitol Hill sists. "He does not interfere with the correspondent in Washington, D.C. ; editorial product at all. And that's "People see a lot more Bella Shaw, '76 B.A., weekday after- pretty wise . He couldn't attract very good news than they think. noon anchor ; Charles Hoff, '67 B .A., many professionals if he did. I don't national assignments editor; Tony want to sound like a sycophant, but You don't come out with Clark, '71 B.A ., '73 M.A., Dallas he's a wonderful boss. some silly grin and say, bureau chief; and Neal Jones,'62, pro- "We have a staff meeting once or `This is good news' ducer-writer. Other Oklahoma re- twice a week with Ted. He wants to You just report it." cruits include CNN executive pro- know what kind of problems we have, ducer Larry Lamont, producer of spe- the big projects we've got going, and cial events John Hillis, news anchor he keeps us posted on what he's doing. come from," he says emphatically . Sasha Foo, Los Angeles bureau re- He has some pretty good story ideas "The competitive environment porter Brian Jenkins and sports because ofthe kind oflife he leads . He teaches you to be an aggressive go-get- anchor Mike Cowman. meets a lot of interesting people and ter for a story. Coming out of states Turner admits to a special personal goes to a lot of interesting places. We like that, somehow you're more clear- interest in the career of one former take some of his ideas, and when they headed . You're not afraid of work, and OU student, however . Chris Turner, are bad, we argue with him." you usually don't come into a situation Ed's son, started as a "copy ripper" at Any one of the J-School establish- or a story with a lot of built-in pre- CNN, then went next door to CNN2 ment of the mid-'50s would be quick judices . Headline News, where he worked up to testify that Ed Turner has never "A lot of my friends come from New to supervisor before being picked as a hesitated to state an opposing opinion. York," he explains, "and I worked in field producer traveling with the Mon- Although he came intojournalism late New York and Washington for 20 dale, Hart and Ferraro campaigns . by way of drama and broadcasting/ years. I'm continually astounded by To hear Turner talk about the fu- speech, he was the Oklahoma Daily's how you go block to block there and ture of television news broadcasting best-read columnist by his senior year . the Serbians hate the Croatians, who - the impossible made possible by "One of the wittiest guys I ever hate the Greeks, who hate the Turks. technology - it is easy to understand knew," recalls former Daily editor Mental blocks are very harmful in the his pleasure in having a son follow in Campbell, who was Turner's college company of decent journalists." his professional footsteps . And in his roommate and Phi Gamma Delta Ed Turner has hired dozens of Ok- enthusiasm, the network executive is fraternity brother - and who takes lahoma-educated or Oklahoma- reminiscent of a much brasher Eddie credit for guiding Ed into journalism . trained television journalists for Turner nearly 30 years ago conspiring That career choice led eventually to a CNN, and he claims that all of them with the campus movers and shakers Sigma Delta Chi national journalism have excelled, without exception . He in the old Daily newsroom across from award for distinguished reporting, the cites the news departments of televi- the Oklahoma Memorial Union. Back Cannes Film Festival award for sion stations in both Oklahoma City then his college cohorts could not have documentaries, eight Emmys and sev- and Tulsa as prime sources ofperson- predicted his career in cable news - eral United Press International re- nel for the networks . they didn't even know what cable was porting awards . "Each station in those two markets - but they knew that Ed Turner "The journalism school didn't wants to have the top news operation would make it to the top. 0 16 SOONER MAGAZINE