The birth and rise of CNN and the story of its ambitious founder are depicted by a former Newsweek White House correspondent through more than 250 interviews with Ted Turner's associates, friends, and family. 100,000 first printing. Tour.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
When the family billboard business faltered, he advertised his newly bought minor radio stations on the unrented billboards; he bought hapless UHF TV stations to create a satellite-cable superstation and CNN; and, hoping to outperform the major networks, he accepted tough terms in a deal for MGM, knowing that the film library alone ( Casablanca , The Wizard of Oz , etc.) would be worth it. He fostered the Goodwill Games in Moscow, a world environmental conference and the conversion of 150,000 Montana cattle-ranching acres into a free range for buffalo. He also skippered an America's Cup sailing victory, went duck-hunting with Fidel Castro, brought the low-ranking Atlanta Braves to a World Series and married Jane Fonda. Analyzed as manic-depressive and known for titanic drinking sprees, world-class womanizing, nude cavorting, competitiveness with an abusive suicidal father, alternately charming and moody, he has been calmed down with lithium in time to run for President in 1996, "if it was the only way" to save the country. Such are the highlights, but far from the entirety, of this intensely detailed and absorbing portrait of Atlanta's Robert Edward Turner III by a former Newsweek White House correspondent.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Perhaps Bibb, former White House correspondent for Newsweek , can't be blamed for the insidious lack of focus in this biography; it may merely reflect the manifold and manic energy of his subject. The book is an often ill-stitched patchwork of psychodrama (father's suicide and passage of his manic-depressive legacy to son); yachting memoir (America's Cup win in 1977); baseball yarn (comeback of the Atlanta Braves); media analysis (start-up of CNN); and of course celebrity dish (courting of now-wife Jane Fonda). While this book will have its place in libraries, it does not strike one as particularly astute or unbiased. Bibb rather fawningly states that "Ted Turner is a journalist's dream. His disarming candor and unflinching sincereity are unusual, if not unique. He may be the only honest billionaire in history." Yet Turner's input and voice are not apparent. Still, given that Turner has yet to write his own story and the only other biography is a rah-rah one by Turner friend Christian Williams ( Lead, Follow or Get Out the Way , LJ 9/1/81), this is at least a start.
- Judy Quinn, New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Judy Quinn, New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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