CNN Honors Ted Turner’s Legacy After His Death At 87

CNN honored founder Ted Turner on the day he died, treating the news as breaking while spending about two consecutive hours on Turner before moving on to other news. NPR described Turner as the vision behind CNN founder Ted Turner’s role in making “access to immediacy” possible, saying Turner transformed the media industry when he launched the Cable News Network — CNN — in 1980. NPR added that CNN was “the country’s first 24-hour news channel,” and said Turner died Wednesday at age 87. The New York Daily News reported Turner died Wednesday while surrounded by his family near his Tallahassee, Fla. home, amid a battle with Lewy body dementia.

CNN Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour remembered Turner as a model for the 24/7 news cycle, saying, “He was the original. He made us all proud, he made us all hopeful.” The New York Daily News quoted Wolf Blitzer recalling Turner’s hiring message, “‘This is where the news comes first, and your vacations and everything else comes second,'” and said Blitzer will “miss him a lot.” The same New York Daily News account said Amanpour described Turner as “the amazing American success story, the businessman, the visionary, the revolutionary, who created really a media revolution.” It also reported that Couric praised Turner as “asingular figure— in a world of colorful media moguls, he was technicolor,” and that Mark Thompson said, “There areno worthy successorsto Ted Turner.”

The Guardian of Turner’s legacy in media and philanthropy appeared through the way outlets framed his 24-hour model and broader influence, with NPR tying Turner’s CNN launch to the ability to be “there as history is unfolding.” Georgia Public Broadcasting said Turner founded CNN, “America’s first 24-hour cable news network in Atlanta in 1980,” and reported he died Wednesday, May 6, after a brief time in hospice care at age 87. It also stated Turner suffered from Lewey Body Dementia, a diagnosis he received in 2018, and listed his children Laura, Teddy, Rhett, Jennie, and Beau, along with former wife Jane Fonda. In the same account, GPB quoted Wolf Blitzer at a dedication in December 2019, saying, “We raise our glasses to you, Ted,” and called Turner “a true legend.”