Ted Turner, who founded CNN and died Wednesday at 87, was a piece of work. He was one of the great media builders of the last century and one of the most restless, visionary, and genuinely decent men I have ever known. I got to spend a few months with him back in 1986, when we explored the possibility of me ghosting his autobiography. We went hunting, went to ball games, went to Moscow, and talked about everything, especially peace, politics, and the environment—three of his obsessions. Ultimately, the book didn’t work out, but the experience was transformative for me. I learned a great deal about the nature of genius and about the joy of chronic optimism.
The world began anew for Ted every day. Anything was possible. He had mad, exuberant highs—and, I suppose, there were some lows in there too, but I never saw them. I realized that genius wasn’t necessarily a matter of IQ. His was not a traditional intelligence, but one of horizon: Ted saw things before other people did. Most notably, he saw the future of cable television. He transformed a tiny UHF station—Channel 17 in Atlanta—into CNN, the network that invented round-the-clock news, and beyond that into TBS, TNT, and Turner Classic Movies.
