A Lover of the Wilderness and Women

Legendary projects in the United States usually begin in either New York City or California. The first built a skyscraper and then an entire forest of them. The second created Hollywood, the film industry, and Silicon Valley. Other states have their own strengths and weaknesses, but none enjoyed the same overwhelming global fame.

Until an idea occurred to the owner of a small television station in the city of Atlanta: a channel that would broadcast news twenty-four hours a day. And from where? From humid Atlanta, not from New York.

Instead of going out to the world, Ted Turner invited the world to come to him—to Atlanta. From there, he would launch the most important news network in history: a channel that would not report events after they happened, but while they were unfolding, and sometimes even before they occurred.

CNN entered every home and institution around the globe. It spread through the offices of presidents and world leaders. Ted Turner was famously passionate about women, but he was equally generous in philanthropy. He donated one billion dollars to the United Nations, contributed millions to climate advocacy, helped save the American grouse from extinction, and married—his third wife—the actress Jane Fonda, who became famous for leading opposition to the Vietnam War.

The global reach of CNN resembles the invention of the telephone, the radio, and television—or perhaps all three combined.

What made Turner exceptional was his ability to benefit from all three at once. From the offices of his bankrupt station in Atlanta, he transformed hopeless debts into an empire stretching across the world.

Originally published in Asharq Al-Awsat