John LeBoutillier
Thursday, Aug.16, 2001

In a shocking – and revealing – speech up at Harvard recently, the founder of CNN and the infamous Mouth of the South, talked of the history of the first all-news cable operation:

"I said, we're going to be honest and we're going to be fair to all sides and we're not going to take a position, we're going to let the viewers make up their own mind. And until recently CNN reported to me. It doesn't anymore, which is a great source of sorrow for me, but in life you have to play the cards that are dealt you.

"I love journalism. I never got the network here in the United States that I wanted, one of the major networks, but I'm very close to getting one in Russia. And I'll just move over there, goddammit, and I'll keep on trucking, because Russia needs me a lot more than the United States does anyway.

"But I'll always remember my roots, they were here, and I really love America ... want to thank you very much for this award. And I love being at Harvard, even if I didn't get in [as a student]."

Whew!

These startling statements are reported in the summer 2001 issue of "Press/Politics", the newsletter of Harvard's Shorenstein Center for Press and Public Policy.

Ted Turner was receiving the Career Award for Excellence in Journalism when he delivered this otherwise-unreported acceptance speech.

Turner's original mission statement for CNN – circa 1980-1985 – sounds exactly like Fox News Channel today!

Taking no position – and being fair to all sides – sure sounds like "Fair and Balanced," doesn't it?

And for those of you who do not remember the 'early' CNN, it was exactly like that. One of Ted's first ideas was the original "Crossfire" – matching the hapless liberal, Tom Braiden, against the far-superior debater, Pat Buchanan. It was well known at the time that C"Crossfire" was the then-conservative Turner's "baby." He loved watching the populist Buchanan cream the effete inside-the-beltway liberal Braiden.

In those days Turner was no liberal. I ran into him outside the Capitol one day in 1981. I was quite well known at the time for being an outspoken conservative congressman. Ted was so happy to meet me – and we exchanged jokes about who could go after the liberals more effectively.

My opinion is everything changed for Ted – and for his "baby" CNN – when two things happened:

1) He tried to buy CBS – and was rejected clearly because he was a conservative who was 'unacceptable' to the Left.

2) Jane Fonda – after whom the woman-crazy Turner had long pined – left her husband, Tom Hayden.

Turner, wanting acceptance by the liberal elite in order to buy one of the three major networks, and wanting into Fonda's bed, made a radical shift. He went from populist, grass-roots anti-establishment conservative to a leader of the leftist pack.

The result? He married Jane Fonda, still could never buy a network, sold his beloved CNN and Turner Broadcasting for billions, lost Jane Fonda – and is now moving to Russia!

His CNN is in a free-fall. The liberal culture he allowed to take over his once independent and non-biased pioneer has ruined his greatest accomplishment. And his greatest opponent – Rupert Murdoch – now commands the hottest all-news cable operation: Fox News Channel.

No wonder he wants to move to Russia!

He will feel more at home there.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Media Bias
Russia