by Lisa Napoli
This page “I don’t think it makes”: Craig M. Allen, News Is People: The Rise of Local TV News and the Fall of News from New York (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2001), 19.
This page The station had been working: Paul Farhi, “Going Live,” American Journalism Review 24, no. 9 (November 2002): 28–33, https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=2685&id=2685.
This page “happy talk”: Edward Bliss, Jr., Now the News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991, 459.
This page “I don’t think people will accept”: Nick Thimmesch, “ABC Five-Million Dollar Woman Raises Some Questions About News Business,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, May 3, 1976.
This page With her smooth blend: James Doussard, “If You Like Cosell, You’ll Love Warner Wolf,” The Courier-Jounal (Louisville), August 5, 1975.
This page Channel 17, he gloated: Roger Vaughan, The Grand Gesture: Ted Turner, Mariner and the America’s Cup (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975), 11.
This page By the end of the day: Ron Buchwald, phone interview with author, July 30, 2018.
This page Tush felt a bit guilty: Bill Tush, phone interview by Karen Herman, Television Academy Foundation, June 14, 2010, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/bill-tush.
This page “You’re doing a good job”: Bert Roughton, “Mr. Emcee,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 19, 2013.
This page feared he’d wind up—“anonymity-ville”: Steven Vinnacombe, “Tush Making Great Time,” Buckhead Atlanta, February 29, 1980.
This page “Hey, I saw that ‘Dull News’”: Richard Zoglin, “A Tush for All Seasons,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 1, 1981.
This page to the shock and admiration of friends: Roger Vaughan, Ted Turner: The Man Behind the Mouth (Boston: Sail Books, 1978), 220–21.
This page “What’s wrong with that?”: Nick Taylor, “The American Hero as Media Mogul,” Atlanta magazine, March 1982.
This page “I tell them to look”: Vaughan, Ted Turner: The Man Behind the Mouth, 34.
This page Once, he subjected his most trusted: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 59.
This page his very presence seemed to inspire: Gerry Hogan interview, Gerald Jay Goldberg Papers, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
This page “you strike me as”: Ron Kirk, WTCG employee, phone interview with author, February 19, 2019.
This page “So, you’re the one”: Greg Gunn, interview with author, February 20, 2019.
This page Dressed in black robes: Bill Tush, interview with author, July 9, 2019.
This page “This morning, the thoughts of”: Gayle White, “Some Pyrite from the Lips of Brother Gold,” Atlanta Constitution, October 3, 1978; Bill Tush, e-mail to author, July 9, 2019; David Bell, personal collection.
This page “We can’t do the news like that”: Tush, interview by Karen Herman.
This page deciding a onetime $300 cash bonus: Pike, We Changed the World, 43.
This page The fan mail that streamed into: Paul Jones, “Bill Tush’s Fan Club Grows Nationwide,” Atlanta Constitution, July 25, 1977.
This page “an opaque cloud of”: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 92.
This page While other broadcasters feared: Thomas Southwick, Distant Signals: How Cable TV Changed the World of Telecommunications (Overland Park, KS: Primedia, 1998), 126.
This page seventy-three cable systems across five states: Gordon W. Chaplin, “Cable TV Zeroes in on the Cities,” Baltimore Sun, July 4, 1972.
This page Now it was a full-on: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 89.
This page hundreds of pieces of mail: Former channel 17 head of research Bob Sieber, e-mail to author, September 20, 2019.
This page Every penny helped: Turner, Call Me Ted, 138.
This page “ABC will shrink down”: Williams, Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way, 85.
Chapter Five: Captain Outrageous
This page “It is a peculiar trait”: Wayne Minshew, “‘Damn Braves’: Turner Purchase Blow to Carpetbaggers,” Atlanta Constitution, January 8, 1976.
This page “No other team”: Bob Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You: An Irreverent Look at the Atlanta Braves, the Losingest Team in Baseball for the Past 25 Years (Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1991), 1.
This page “Atlanta is my home”: Robert Ashley Fields, Take Me Out to the Crowd: Ted Turner and the Atlanta Braves (Huntsville, Alabama: The Strode Publishers, Inc.,1977), 29.
This page When the owners had revealed: Christian Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way: The Story of Ted Turner (New York: Times Books, 1981), 94.
This page Patrons donned their finest: Jim Minter, “Old Friends Say ‘Farewell’ to Glennon,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 15, 1968.
This page “ball from a balk”: Fields, Take Me Out to the Crowd, 87.
This page “We may lose it all on this deal”: Fields, Take Me Out to the Crowd, 39.
This page “like switching from Mozart to Lynyrd Skynard”: Furman Bisher quoted in ibid., 41.
This page He planned to run buses: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 82.
This page “Please do not be too lengthy”: Ad, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 1, 1979.
This page “Hope, I want this team to be”: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 81.
This page If he knew they cost $150: Roger Vaughan, The Grand Gesture: Ted Turner, Mariner and the America’s Cup (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975), 41.
This page Though the weather was bitter cold: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 82.
This page The fans needed to know: Ibid., 70.
This page “It will mean more money”: Tony Lang, “The Rhett Butler of Baseball,” The Enquirer Magazine (Cincinnati), June 13, 1976.
This page A screening of a film: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 84–85.
This page “Lord, it would blow his mind”: Curry Kirkpatrick, “Going Real Strawwng,” Sports Illustrated, August 21, 1978.
This page The gentility quickly devolved: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 86.
This page “The Civil War was a boon”: Lang, “The Rhett Butler of Baseball.”
This page After the very first game: Larry Guest, “Is It a Bird? A Plane? No! It’s Ted Turner!,” Orlando Sentinel, May 6, 1976.
This page baseball was for “little people”: Ron Hudspeth, “Ted’s ‘Little People’ Philosophy Dissected,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 6, 1978.
This page “My wife and I are unable”: Guest, “It’s a Bird? It’s a Plane? No! It’s Ted Turner!”
This page an allegedly profligate man: Frank Hyland, “Little Guy Gone: Braves Fire Davidson . . . and an Era Ends,” Atlanta Journal and Constitution, April 25, 1976.
This page The spurned employee’s wife: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 32.
This page “Ted Turner has money”: Fields, Take Me Out to the Crowd, 88.
This page “a package of dynamite”: Roger Vaughan, quoted in Courageous: Ted Turner and the 1977 America’s Cup, NBC, June 17, 2017.
This page “would make coffee nervous”: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 92.
This page “I call people that”: Ibid., 142.
This page Pitcher Dick Ruthven: Maralyn Lois Polak, “Ruthven: Balking When the Owner Advanced His Wife,” Today: The Inquirer Magazine (Philadelphia), August 20, 1978.
This page For his part: Bob Carter, “Ted Turner: He Only Talks Like One of the Little Guys,” The Morning News (Wilmington, DE), May 16, 1979.
This page “Ted’s French whore”: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 93.
This page “Excuse me, I have to call”: Jonathan Black, “Bluebloods Must Learn to Live with Yachting Bad Boy’s Name on the Cup,” Miami News, September 20, 1977.
This page “Every pig in the southeast”: DeWitt Rogers and Wayne Minshew, “Atlanta’s
Super Promoter: Madcap Gimmicks Helping Give Braves Turnout Quite a Hype,” Atlanta Constitution, August 27, 1977.
This page He’d almost backed out: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 113.
This page “I may look like a clown”: Peter Ross Range, “Playboy Interview: Ted Turner,” Playboy, August 1978.
This page “Now everybody knows me”: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 142.
This page “If all charges and kidding”: Wayne Minshew, “Turner Hearing Is Due Jan. 18,” Atlanta Constitution, January 4, 1977.
This page “People might suddenly realize”: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 148.
This page “I double locked my door”: “Turner Complains about Harassment,” Associated Press, December 8, 1978.
This page At the hotel restaurant: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 150.
This page “Ted, there’s a fine line”: Ibid.
This page “Steal this Signal”: Longtime Turner executive Terence McGuirk, phone interview with author, March 20, 2019.
This page From the ladies in the brothels: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 102.
This page The surge of calls: Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, 169.
This page “How many people in Alaska”: Bob Mayes, “Instant Replay: Not Avid Fan, Cameraman Follows Blue-Gray Closely,” Alabama Journal, December 28, 1976.
This page the city of Valdez: Bert Roughton, “Mr. Emcee,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 19, 2013.
This page “Hitler was more likely”: Hope writes on page 177 of his book, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You, that the purchase of the Hawks was another part of a complex scheme in the house of Turner. He feared the FCC prohibiting a station in a market the size of Atlanta from continuing to distribute its signal over the cable and satellite. If that were to happen, he’d then have to shift operations to his Charlotte station, which was not in the top 20. Ted needed to own the Hawks in order to move them, if need be, to North Carolina. Some games were even played there as a test.
This page He planned to supply up to sixteen: “Turner Sets Sports Net,” Atlanta Constitution, February 3, 1977.
This page Jimmy, Rosalynn, and Amy: Frank Hyland, “Braves at Plains: A Real Happening,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 16, 1977.
This page Wouldn’t the media love to see: Peter Ross Range, “Playboy Interview: Ted Turner,” Playboy, August 1978.
This page And on the way back home: Curry Kirkpatrick, “Going Real Strawwng,” Sports Illustrated, August 21, 1978.
This page The alibi she gave: Taylor Branch and Eugene M. Propper, Labyrinth: The Sensational Story of International Intrigue in the Search for the Assassins of Orlando Letelier (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), 391–96.
This page “I want to keep a low profile”: Red Smith, “Maverick Ted: Turner Shakes up Writers’ Party,” New York Times, April 6, 1977.
This page “You should have some reason”: Red Smith, “Maverick of the Breakfast Table,” New York Times, April 6, 1977.
This page In a letter to the local: Letters to the Editor, “Ted Turner Employees ‘Take Exception,” Southern Israelite (Augusta, GA), April 15, 1977.
This page Observers looked on with amusement: Phil Pepe, Talkin’ Baseball: An Oral History of Baseball in the 1970s (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), 271.
This page “If you want to beat the Mouth”: Vaughan, The Man Behind the Mouth, 102.
This page “Show me your titties”: Ibid., 203.
This page “There are times you’d like to bash”: Dick Sadler, quoted in Courageous.
This page “This has to be a dream”: Al Thomy, “Turner Defends U.S. Honor,” Atlanta Constitution, September 13, 1977.
This page “floating Times Square on New Year’s Eve”: Vaughan, The Man Behind the Mouth, 204.
This page “Pike, give me that”: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 152.
This page “I’m happy to be alive”: Ted Turner appearing in Enersen, The Best Defense.
This page “Shoot, Pike,” Williams said: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 153.
Chapter Six: “No News Is Good News”
This page This was his best salvo: Reese Schonfeld, Me and Ted Against the World: The Unauthorized Story of the Founding of CNN (New York: Cliff Street, 2001), 65.
This page Ted had not budged: Don Kowet, “Why Are They Watching a Georgia Station in Nebraska?,” TV Guide, July 16, 1977.
This page “I hate the news”: Reese Schonfeld, interview by Karen Herman, Television Academy Foundation, November 9 and 11, 2005, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/reese-schonfeld.
This page One of them was: Ted Kavanau, phone interview with author, March 11 and 12, 2018.
This page “We’d chase people”: Ted Kavanau, phone interview, March 12, 2018.
This page “Ted’s idea of continuity”: Jeff Greenfield, “The 10 O’Clock News: It’s Not Pretty, but It’s Good,” New York magazine, October 24, 1977.
This page “don’t know anything”: Ted Kavanau, “TV Newsmen Are Superficial,” Variety, November 3, 1971, 32.
This page Abend was rabidly: “Kavanau Goes Round ‘Abend,’” Variety, August 14, 1974, 30.
This page There was a liberal bias: Dorothy Rabinowitz, “The Bitter Prescriptions of Dr. Feelbad,” New York magazine, May 7, 1973.
This page The day he did: “Kavanau Goes Around ‘Abend.’” Bill Greeley, “Morale of WNEW-TV News Staff in Tailspin Over Editorial Immunity for Abend’s ‘Angled’ Commentary,” Variety, January 14, 1970.
This page SUGGEST YOU TAKE THE OTHER OFFER: Daniel Schorr, interview by Don Carleton, Television Academy Foundation, “The Interviews: An Oral History of Television,” May 22, 2001, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/daniel-schorr.
This page “immigrant from the world of words”: Daniel Schorr, Clearing the Air (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977).
This page America’s “giant classroom”: Ibid., 92.
This page Tipped off in the middle: Av Westin, Newswatch: How TV Decides the News (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), 20.
This page “I chafed at the straightjacket”: Schorr, Clearing the Air, 93.
This page He even ranked a crossword-puzzle clue: Ibid., 232.
This page “brash little appendage”: Ibid., 289.
This page “Hey, didn’t you used to be”: Ibid., 321.
This page “The postmarks tell the tale”: Christian Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way: The Story of Ted Turner (New York: Times Books, 1981), 100.
This page “Who had the devious and cunning mind”: Roger Vaughan, Ted Turner: The Man Behind the Mouth (Boston: Sail Books, 1978), 120.
This page “only horny people shoot”: Peter Ross Range, “Playboy Interview: Ted Turner,” Playboy, August 1978.
This page Might they have to blow up: Hank Whittemore, CNN: The Inside Story: How a Band of Mavericks Changed the Face of Television News (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), 236.
This page a “born-again journalist”: Stephen Banker, “The Cable News Network Sets Sail,” Panorama, April 1980, 46.
This page Tantalized by the unfurling: Gerald Levin, telephone interview with author, July 10, 2019.
This page When the phone rang: ITNA and CNN employee Gerry Harrington, telephone interview with author, April 8, 2019.
This page he knew “diddley-squat”: Ted Turner, interview by Michael Rosen, Television Academy Foundation, June 12 and December 6, 1999, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ted-turner.
This page “Well”—Ted shrugged: Reese Schonfeld, Me and Ted Against the World: The Unauthorized Story of the Founding of CNN (New York: Cliff Street, 2001), 16.
This page And great companies were: Ted Turner, interview by Michael Rosen.
This page “With film you needed”: Paul Farhi, “Going Live,” American Journalism Review 24, no. 9 (November 2002): 28–33, htt
ps://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=2685&id=2685.
This page “The cable industry doubts”: Banker, “The Cable News Network Sets Sail.”
This page “Attila the Hun”: Ibid.
This page “Seeing such a young, vibrant guy”: Ted Turner with Bill Burke, Call Me Ted (New York: Grand Central Publishing), 124.
This page “big baseball league in the sky”: Bob Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You: An Irreverent Look at the Atlanta Braves, the Losingest Team in Baseball for the Past 25 Years (Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1991), 192.
This page “This is gonna make me”: Schonfeld, Me and Ted Against the World, 5.
This page an invitation to sail: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 254.
This page “that make-believe world”: Schorr, Clearing the Air, 284.
This page a “drunk” who “sailed ships”: Schorr, interview by Don Carleton.
This page Lending his name: Roxinne Ervasti, “Daniel Schorr Joins Turner’s New Network,” Associated Press, November 10, 1979.
This page “Live, live, live”: Schonfeld, Me and Ted Against the World, 5.
This page They would not and could not last: “HBO History Makers Series: A Conversation with Ted Turner,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 13, 2010, https://www.cfr.org/event/hbo-history-makers-series-conversation-ted-turner.
This page “No demand will be made”: Daniel Schorr Papers, Box 22, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.
This page The energy in the small hotel conference room: “Turner Says He’ll Have His Cable News Network On in a Year’s Time,” Broadcasting, May 28, 1979; trade reporter Howard Polskin, who was present at the time, e-mail exchange with author, August 13, 2019.
This page “the greatest achievement”: CNN promotional film, also as quoted by Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 252.
Chapter Seven: Every Drop of Blood
This page going to be necessary—effective immediately: Robert Bianco, “Former Pittsburgher a Fixture at TBS,” Pittsburgh Press, March 10, 1990.
This page Ted had promised: Steven Vinnacombe, “Tush Making Great Time,” Buckhead Atlanta, February 29, 1980.
