Me and Ted Against the World : The Unauthorized Story of the Founding of CNN (Hardcover)

by Reese Schonfeld (Author) "In this world things happen that most of us would rather not see..." (more)
Key Phrases: cable owners, video journalists, live truck, New York, Ted Turner, Time Warner (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
"CNN is my invention," proclaims Schonfeld at the outset of this entertaining, vindictive memoir of founding the world's first 24-hour news network with media mogul Ted Turner in 1979. A longtime TV and print journalist, Schonfeld was president for three years until he was fired by Turner after a clash of egos and largely forgotten within CNN's institutional memory. This book is his opportunity to set the record straight, tell some great anecdotes and (not least) settle a few old scores. Schonfeld maintains that as it hit the airwaves on June 1, 1980, CNN was largely his creation: he devised its revolutionary "fluid news" style and assembled the initial staff (largely by raiding other networks: "Will the last one leaving for CNN turn out the lights?" became the mantra at CBS). With only a shoestring budget, Schonfeld used creative methods to scoop the competition--for example, smuggling tape out of Solidarity-era Poland wrapped around a cameraman's legs. He also managed to get lucky with talented unknowns like Katie Couric, Peter Arnett and Bernard Shaw (although Schonfeld also went after big guns like Orson Welles, whom he wanted as cohost for Crossfire). Best of all, Schonfeld says, Turner made appearances mostly just to raise hell and stir up the troops. CNN was going strong right up to the moment when Turner fired him; afterwards, Schonfeld maintains, it lost the brash, upstart approach that ensured its early ratings, and it turned into just another network. Sour grapes? Perhaps. One side of the story? Without a doubt. But it's wrapped in a fantastic package and loaded with humor, insight and dish on everyone from Turner down. (Feb. 6)Forecast: Bound to be one of the most controversial, and talked-about, media books of the year, Schonfeld's bold tell-all should attract major media on his three-city author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

They were the odd couple of broadcast news, destined to alter global communications forever -- to free-for-all of a saga that's larger than life and more engaging than a major business book has any right to be.

1979. Down in Atlanta, Ted Turner was fighting his battles with the networks. Up in New York, Reese Schonfeld was warring with the network journalists. Then they joined forces in a magnificent experiment and, for the next three years, stood shoulder to shoulder and back to back -- until the allies became antagonists, and the unraveling of CNN began.

Turner was cable before cable was cool. Schonfeld was in the TV news business before there was a TV news business was tile best advertising salesman TV has ever known. Schonfeld had invented the first independent news agency that worked. Turner got cable companies to put CNN -- thefirst twenty-four-hour news network -- on the air. Schonfeld got newsmen to bet their lives on CNN. Turner brought in the money. Schonfeld brought in the news. Turner had been thrown out of Brown, Schonfeld, out of Harvard Law. Neither could tolerate authority. Both were control freaks. CNN was their baby.

1982. With CNN's ratings at an all-time high. Turner fired Schonfeld and gained control of CNN. Now it was totally his baby. Schonfeld went oil to, create News 12 and the Food Network. Ted went on to create TNT, the Cartoon Network, and Turner Movie Classics: become a legend; and sell his empire to Time Warner.

2000. Now Ted looks at news from the outside. Schonfeld plays one more long shot, trying to get back in. CNN is Time Warner's now. In the beginning, it was me and Ted against the world, but has the world finally won?

Me and Ted Against the World recounts tile no-holds-barred triumphs of CNN's beginnings, the tribulations of its middle age, and the tragedy of its current moment in the wake of Time Warner's projected sale to AOL. As broadly entertaining as it is enlightening about the brave universe of telecommunications and crammed with unforgettable characters and highly revealing anecdotes, Me and Ted Against the World is eye-opening in every sense of the word.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness; 1st edition (February 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060197463
• ISBN-13: 978-0060197469
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #918,665 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How a Guerilla Journalist Changed the World, March 16, 2001

By A Customer

Me and Ted Against the World should be required reading, not just for journalism students and those interested in news and public affairs, it should be on the must-read list for everyone who loves a good tale, well written. It tells two distinct stories: one, how the good guys won; and two, how the not-so-good guys screwed up. The teller of the tales is the world's foremost guerilla journalist, Reese Schonfeld. His background, he had bumped heads with the network news establishment at United Press Movietone News and as founder of the Independent Television News Association, made him the only person on the planet with the capability of implementing the then revolutionary idea of an around the clock television news channel. What he needed was a conspirator, another revolutionary who could come up with the money and sell the concept. Enter Ted Turner. They joined forces and together they changed the world; not just the television world, the entire world. Diplomacy, warfare, commerce and culture are all vastly different entities as a result of CNN and others like it which have come along since. The story of how they succeeded, Turner as Mr. Outside, the deal maker promoter and salesman, and Schonfeld as Mr. Inside, the architect, builder and keeper of the gate, is terrific. After the revolution was won, the two revolutionaries had no more wars to win. Except against each other. That war was one-sided. One guy, Turner, owned all the weapons. The other, Schonfeld, was a great general who had troops but no supplies. Turner called Schonfeld into his office one day and in the same breath declared war and declared himself the victor. Schonfeld was fired. The empire had been built, so the guy who constructed it was no longer needed, or so Turner thought. What he failed to factor in was that Schonfeld was also the chief maintenance man. Without him, even though the money has rolled in, the empire has become tattered and gray. CNN did change the world, but now it has trouble keeping up with the very changes it put into play. Is Schonfeld's version of events entirely objective? No. He has a journalist's insistence on facts, but it's impossible to be entirely objective about something you love - especially when you have loved and lost. Does he use his forum to hand out a few receipts for sins of the past? You bet he does. Is Me and Ted Against the World one helluva book? You bet it is.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars X-Ray vision for TV news, May 15, 2001

By	Zoran Svetlicic (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

Whenever I encounter TV news after having read this book, the mechanics and biases behind it appear so obvious.

By exposing the guts of a news machine, and insightfully comparing different coverage of the same event, Me and Ted gives you a level of news literacy that lets you appreciate it more. This level of detail -- clearly coming from someone obsessed with his creation -- is amazing and rarely tedious. Combine it with Randall Rothenberg's advertising expose "Where the Suckers Moon", for a good start at understanding post-70s America.

The one drawback ... But once you get used to filtering it out, Me and Ted becomes a wonderful book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Story of the Founding of CNN, September 26, 2005

By	Badreya Al Alawi "Badreya AlJenaibi" (Bowling Green OH) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Reese Schonfeld wrote the book Me and Ted Against the World, (HarperCollins Publisher, 2001) which is described as the unauthorized story of the founding of CNN. Schonfeld writes that the time in which he was writing his book was a great period in the history of CNN because everything was in a mess. Ted Turner's deal with AOL/Time Warner was not working out the way he had planned. The numbers of viewers for CNN shows had declined. Everyone was nervous. But Schonfeld says this is a great time to be writing a book!
Reese Schonfeld was one Turner's partner for the first three years of the life of CNN. He was in the news business, and Ted turner was described as the best advertising salesman that TV had ever known. Together they worked to develop CNN. Both Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld were thrown out of their universities because they did not like authority, Schonfeld out of Harvard Law and Turner out of Brown University.
The reviewer says, "both were control freaks. CNN was their baby" (cover). However, in 1982, when CNN's ratings were at its highest, Turner fired Schonfeld and gained control of CNN. This story is told from Schonfeld's point of view. In the beginning, he writes that he will be cynical and tough when writing this book. Schonfeld says that although he did not invent 24 hour news, he did invent the idea of fluid news. This is the style he says that differentiates CNN from others. Fluid news is described as being spontaneous.
Schonfeld says that it took some time for the people he hired to understand this right away because they were used to perfect half-hour shows. Some learned and adjusted and some did not. Before he could fire the ones that did not learn, Mr. Turner fired him.
Over the years, he says that the network has become "constipated and sluggish." When CNN first started, Schonfeld says the audience was enthused about watching world news, but times have changed. He explains that people watch news that has relevance in their lives; they are turning back to watching local news more than cable news. Another problem, according to Schonfeld, is that CNN does not go into depth about any subject, and it spends more time reporting about international news than American events. The highest ratings, and the ones that made CNN the most famous, was the coverage of the Gulf War. The ratings at that time almost doubled.
There was another peak during the OJ Simpson Trial, and then a minor increase during Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment proceedings. Interestingly, although Schonfeld reports that the numbers are way down, he says that at the anniversary celebration, he was hearing over and over how much CNN had improved. He says, "This is a dangerous myth because it reverses the truth" (xvi). For those people who might want to learn about a 24 hour news station, they need to know what works and what doesn't, so the truth is good.
One of the ideas regarding CNN that made it different than other news networks was that the founders wanted to show the entire news making process, not just what appeared like magic on NBC. You could see much of the control room. The first set of CNN looked like the newsroom of a newspaper but with lights and cameras. Other television news was "romantic and mystical." But CNN wanted to show the nuts and bolts of the news. Schonfeld describes the style of CNN as deconstructionist. The philosophy of the news at CNN was bottom up news. There were 24 hours that had to be filled, and they wanted people from all bureaus to send them stories. There would be the big stories that everyone would cover, but they wanted to have some extra attractions. Schonfeld says that CNN was developed to "bear witness." It was created to make sure that all the sorrows of the world are told, and that all joys are celebrated. Of course, it was also created to make money, but the way was to present information so that people could understand current events, and place the events in historical context. It was also created so that viewers could call in and talk with commentators on CNN.
His philosophy is in order to sell news, the news has to be the best in the world. That would mean doing the news live as much as possible. It would also be to seek out the stories that everyone else is ignoring, and show why they are significant. In originality the network would find its strength. He quotes William Randolph Hearst who used to say, "there are no bad news stories, only bad reporters" (p. 12). Schonfeld says, "there are no slow news periods, only slow editors, slow producers" (p. 12). I guess this is an attitude you would have to have for 24 hour news.
Schonfeld said that it was his dream of having enough airtime and money so that stories could be told that would be seen around the world. His dream had the element that if you told the truth about what was happening, the world would be a better place. It took 23 years for technology to catch his dream. The development of satellite and cable allowed that. He learned in that time that everyone has an angle, and if you come to understand the angle, you could understand their story. Schonfeld criticized the major networks because he believed their main concern became making money, not presenting in-depth news. The networks were not in the news business; they were in the entertainment business. And all three presented the news in about the same way. Most of the stories came off the Associated Press wires or the mornings New York Times. The structure of the network was from the top down . Everybody did what they were told, and there were orders to follow that came from the top.
In 1979, Ted Turner called him as the news expert to help Turner start a new network of news. This was the first time that live news was the purpose of the network, not the obligation to fill in the news slot in between entertainment. No one was sure how it would work. Schonfeld says that he had a plan for CNN that had a lot of holes, but he knew that it would developed and be shaped into what it could become. "CNN would form itself as it found itself" (p. 15). One thing the network was going to do was tap into the news sources in cities all over the world. Then they could create a world news that was different from the conventional found in the New York Times or London Times. If they guessed about the right spot to put their cameras, Schonfeld knew the whole world would watch. They would help to set the news agenda for the world.
The book is a very interesting one to read. It is not just that the story of CNN is interesting as the first 24 all news network. That part of the book is interesting, of course. However, I think the real value of the book, especially for students of communication and journalism, is that it gives you so much detail about the life inside a news station. It describes the dynamics of this industry, the weaknesses, the strengths. It describes the lives of the personalities that are a part of the industry. It describes what the industry is, and what it could be. It is a fascinating book in this regard. It is bigger than the story of CNN, in my opinion. It is the story of news broadcasting, and Schonfeld tells it well.
I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially to those people who are interested in learning more about news and broadcast journalism. The last few years have been difficult for CNN, and you have to wonder if Schonfeld is not correct in his evaluation that the network has not reached its potential, but has become slowed down. Schonfeld did not end his career with CNN, of course. As described, he co-founded CNN, and then CNN Headline News. But he also created the first all-local news channel in 1985, News 12. And he created the Food Network in 1993. He is an interesting writer, and this was a fun book to read.