By Dom Serafini
My recollection of Ted Turner, who died today, May 6, 2026, at the age of 87 in Florida.
I first met Turner at CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta in 1980, just after he created the first all-news channel, CNN. At the time, I was still working as the international editor at TV/Radio Age. He was wearing cowboy boots, sitting at his desk, and spitting into a bucket. CNN’s editorial and technical offices were then still housed in a mansion, with wires, lights, and TV cameras everywhere.
Turner was subsequently featured in a VideoAge cover story in April 1982; at that time, he was launching CNN-2.
Knowing that I had met Turner, the late Silvio Berlusconi— who was launching his TV networks in Italy and was fascinated by Turner — would often ask me what kind of person Turner was. When I told him that Turner had once said hello to me while carrying his own luggage as he walked into the Hilton Hotel on Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, Berlusconi — who did not even carry a pen himself — remarked that he did the same thing (i.e., carry his own luggage!).
After that, I would see Turner from time to time at United Nations functions.
Turner sold CNN, as part of a merger of Turner Broadcasting System with Time Warner, in 1996 in a deal valued at about $7.3 billion in stock.
Photo courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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