Out of the Newsroom

My old boss is back in the public spotlight again this week. Funny and feisty as ever.

R.E. Turner, III–known to most of the world as Ted Turner, has been the subject of a 60 Minutes profile last night and a turn on Letterman this evening. He’ll be all over the place in the next week or two. The appearances coincide with the publication of his new memoir, “Call Me Ted”–which coincides with the occasion of Turner’s 70th birthday on the 19th of this month.

And to me, the guy is still as charming and brilliant as ever. Some would argue as crazy as ever–but when the heck was anyone who was brilliant not called crazy?

Let me be clear, when I say I worked for Mr. Turner–and being from the south, it still is Mr. Turner, no matter what he or his book says–I didn’t work with him in any sense, but I worked for him. I was way down on the food chain on both occasions.

The first was in 1973, when I got my first job in radio in my hometown of Charleston, SC at WTMA-AM & WPXI-FM. The stations were owned then, as were all of the outdoor advertising displays (what most people call “Billboards”) in Charleston, by a company called the Turner Communications Corporation. While the stations were managed locally by a man named Charles Smith, the paychecks we got every other week had the Turner name on them.

Legend has it that Turner’s ownership of the station’s coincided with his interest in sailing, and he spent a great deal of time either on a yacht in Charleston harbor–or at the plantation that his family owned in Yemassee, South Carolina.

I’d end up working for Mr. Turner again some 23 years later, when Turner Broadcasting would merge with Time Warner, where I was employed at the time. Having read a few books about the man, I was excited at the prospect of meeting him at some point along the way, as my career had landed me a little further up the corporate ladder and that was more a realistic possibility.

It would be a few years later at a meeting in Atlanta, the headquarters of the Turner side of the empire when I’d spend about 30 seconds talking with the man as he greeted the group of news executives meeting in a conference room next to his office. I blurted out something about having worked for him before at the radio stations in Charleston, to which he promptly acknowledged the city as one of the great ones on earth and Mr. Smith as a good man.

Southerners will recognize that as perhaps one of the greatest compliments you can receive. Given Turner’s propensity for speaking his mind frankly, it made the compliment all the more sincere. And like a flash, he was gone. He moved on to the next event on his busy agenda, but not before telling the group of us that what we were working on was–in his words–one of the best things the company was developing, and to keep pushing ahead on it.

It was a short, but motivational talk. I was inspired for months afterwards, because if the guy who had had the guts to make CNN a reality thought what we were doing in local news on cable was a good thing, then it really must be so.

It also helped that I think my Dad was more impressed by my story of meeting Ted Turner than just about anything else I ever shared with him. He thought Turner was a true maverick, back before that word became a political punch line. I would have loved to have taken him to one of Ted’s Montana Grill restaurants. I bet he would have enjoyed just chowing down on a bison burger.

No matter what you might think of him, Turner is still a fascinating figure and one of the people on my list of “Five famous people I’d love to have lunch with”. I’m looking forward to reading his book.

After all, anyone who supports the National Forensic League and shows up each year at their national debate competition is a good man–at least in my book.