330. CNN Then & Now, Ted Turner, and Alaska-Style-Journalism

Introduction

0:00Hi, everybody. Sheryl Ackeson here. Welcome to another edition of the Sheryl Ackeson podcast.

0:11Today, a real treat I think you're going to love. Not only are you going to hear about an entertaining and enlightening new novel that has a lot to say about journalism from the inside, but you also get to hear the author and me dish about the news the early days when we both worked at CNN, back when it was a news organization, and our thoughts on what it's become today, along with insider anecdotes, personal reflections about Ted Turner, and a few true life bloopers.

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David Bernkopf Interview

1:40This conversation is with my good friend David Bernkopf, former producer and executive at CNN, also former producer at Full Measure, and now an author of a new book.

1:58David, your novel, your first, is called, I think if I remember this right, without looking two years, two years on another planet, or is it Alaska? That's it. You got it right. 100%. So you worked. We'll tell people about our history and our work relationship, and we'll talk about our CNN days. People will be fascinated to hear some of your reflections on that in a moment. But we're going to get to that by first talking about this novel. I just finished it. I almost never can do for pleasure reading anymore, because I have so much

2:31work reading to do. But I read this for you, A, because you're a good friend of mine, but B, it was a page turner. I loved it. And I think people, even if they're not in journalism, will find so much humor and so many interesting tidbits in this book. Can you tell us how you got

Inspiration for Novel

2:48inspired to do it? You were living and working in Alaska for a while, and what the idea behind it was? No, I will not, because nothing, nothing I can say can top your introduction in terms of making people want to read it. Okay, well, this was a good interview. Yeah. You know, when I went up there, I knew nobody. I took the job almost in a manic sense. I didn't, when they offered me the job in a cold call. I thought it was crazy. And I wasn't in a hurry to work. As you know, I had left your show,

3:26and I was just kind of chilling, working on some podcasts, not doing much. And then I get this call, do you want to run a small investigative TV unit in Alaska? And I thought it was a joke. Uh, but then I asked my kids and I, and they both said, well, that sounds like an interesting adventure. And then I started thinking, well, you know, you're kind of, maybe you're nearing the end of your full-time work career. Um, maybe I'll think about it. And I, they flew me up there and it just

4:01seemed so interesting because it's so different. And, you know, we used to do investigative stories, uh, when I worked with you at Full Measure, but our stories, some of them were original. Some of them came from things we read elsewhere. The thing about Alaska is it's such an open field of uncovered stories. There's so many stories about the struggle to get healthcare to remote communities.

4:31Uh, the struggle in schools to keep them open with declining, uh, population. The struggles, people don't know this, Alaska, or maybe some do, Alaskans pay no state tax. They pay no state income tax. And they get money once a year from the state. It's called the PFD, the Permanent Fund Dividend, which is everyone's share of oil revenue, uh, mineral rights, those kinds of things. And you get your check. So people are used to giving the government pretty much no money. Now that creates some

5:08conflict as well. When you have declining revenues from oil, cause you're not drilling as much and people don't want to pay taxes. So there's this constant real life struggle over whether the state needs to create some new revenue, uh, to keep highways, you know, operational and schools functioning and all these things. So there was so much to do. Uh, it was such a fascinating field of possibilities. And so I took it and I was there for two years. And what I did was at first,

5:42I just thought to myself, I will keep a journal. I will really journal carefully. And I did every day at the end of work, I'd write something down in my journal and I'd write quotes down. And it occurred to me maybe after I've been there a year. Wait, wait, wait, let me ask, let me, let me ask you.

Working in Alaska

5:59Go ahead. How soon was it that you realized you were like working and living in sort of a TV episode, you know, like once you started there? Well, that's a really good question. It, it struck me that it was something that people just wouldn't believe if I told them, I mean, I would call my family, I would call friends up and say, you know, today we did this thing, or I saw this thing, or, you know, I couldn't get into the front door of the TV station because a

6:31moose was blocking the way that actually happened. But if you work in Washington, DC, that's not something you are used to is moose blocking your ability to get to work. There's a story in the book about a certain kind of seagull that would, when it got to be nesting season, would nest on the roof of a car because it's a nice open flat space and they'd start building nests. Because this particular

7:02type of gull was an endangered species, the station put out a note one day saying, please get that gull off your, move your car before the gull finishes the nest. Because once the gull finishes the nest, your car is going to have to stay there. It would be illegal to remove it. So that's a little strange, right? It's certainly strange for me, maybe not strange for them. So it did strike me pretty quickly that, you know, to steal a line, you're not in Kansas anymore.

7:39And every day, every day was like that. Something completely abnormal to me. So the title of the book, Two Years on Another Planet, isn't that I'm really on another planet. It's that to me, it was

Book Discussion

7:53like another planet. But what I think is interesting, so I love how you wove those stories into the book, plus some journalism. But to me, the most interesting thing, and I think people find interesting, the characters, the types of people you work with or who are willing to or get hired in Alaska, and your characters are composite characters. So they're not exactly like the people you work with, I guess you can explain that. But I recognize bits of these characters and people I've worked with in journalism, you know, the egomaniacal people and the craziness and the

8:27behind the scenes stuff. Maybe all workplaces have some element of this. But some of those stories were hilarious. So how did you handle it? Let's talk about a character or two in your book. And you can just talk about some of their quirks. So people understand, you know, as they're going to read your book, what they're going to encounter. Yeah, so one of the characters, a young reporter who is trying very hard to be a better reporter, but she has an affliction. And the affliction is that she can't stop blinking when she's doing live

9:02shots. So she has this rapid fire blinking that people at home think is some sort of secret Morse code that she's sending asking for help. Now that is made up, but it is based on, I've worked with people who had on air quirks that you would not see in the Washington market or in the Chicago market. They were just, these were hardworking people who wanted to do a good job. But maybe, you know,

9:33Lasko was the only place that was going to hire them.

Quirky Characters

9:38So that's a recurrent sort of tagline in your book. Talk about that a little bit. And it's a fine line because it is fiction. It's fiction. It's fiction. But it's also largely based on things that I observed and then exaggerate. It's exaggeration. So if you remember the TV show Northern Exposure. Loved it. Set in Alaska, it's kind of like that. It's, I am 100% convinced that the people who came up with

10:12that show had spent some time in a small town in Alaska. And there is a town that it clearly is based on a town called Talkeetna, which is about an hour and a half north of Anchorage. And so it doesn't mean that everybody who was in Northern Exposure is a real person, but the quirks that somebody observed amongst people there, you know, they're real. So for instance, there's also, there's a kind of Greek chorus couple that I meet at a bar in the book, at a dive bar. And they

10:49have this love hate relationship where they insult each other. And, but they somehow seem to actually enjoy being around each other. That comes out of a real conversation I had the first time I went to a bar near the University of Alaska campus. And a guy sitting next to me strikes up a conversation. And then he says to me, asked me what I do. And I tell him I run the investigative unit at the TV station. And for some reason, he knows I don't fit into this dive bar, I guess. And he goes,

11:24I don't believe you. I think you're a secret agent. And I looked at him and I wasn't sure if he was serious or not. And I'm still not sure if he was serious or not. But he says, I'm going to call you secret agent Dave. And on the other side of me is this person who they obviously know each other. I have never seen either of these people before. And she says across me to him, he hates that nickname. And then he says, you don't hate that nickname. Do you secret agent Dave? And I'm like,

11:57these people don't even know me. And they're already like debating who I am and what I like. And am I telling them the truth? And so initially, and this gets to the writing process, because I'd never tried to write fiction before. Initially, that was a one-off scene. And then one of my writer friends, I asked her to read the book. And she read it. And she said, you know, you're missing something with these two characters. They need to come back again and again and again

12:28for like little bits of comic relief. And I hadn't even thought about that. So then I added them back in in places. And I think it works. You can judge, but you know. Well, what I love, what I love about it, though, one of the many things is there's all these quirky characters working in Alaska, and most of them have something wrong with them. But when you bring it up, like, should this person really be

13:00doing this particular job, considering their particular affliction? The answer is always, who else are we going to get to work in Alaska? You know? And honestly, there's a variation of that in our business in general, where sometimes we have people we're not entirely happy with working with us. You know, you know, you and I have worked many jobs. But we're always like, who else is going to work for this pay? You know, like, or these hours do this job we're asking of them besides this poor fool, you know, who else is going to work weekends, coming in at 3am? Yeah, be happy you have somebody.

13:36So, you know, there's a lot of that. The other thing is, this is a quirk of Alaskans in general. Alaskans really like their isolation. That's the personality trait that makes you happy to stay in Alaska. If you like being alone in your home or with your, you know, your close circle of friends, if you like hunting or fishing out in the backwoods with just a handful of people,

14:09if you like living off the grid, for whatever reason, and it is a joke, like, why did you come up here? What are you running from? Who did you kill? You know, that's like, like a joke of Alaska, but it self edits a certain kind of person. And so that personality makes you maybe, boy, my Alaska friends might get mad at me for saying this, but I think it makes you a little bit less social and

14:40maybe have a few fewer social skills because there is no, like nobody is meeting, uh, at the football game, uh, on Sunday to, to watch the commanders played. No one is. Is it true that nobody invited you to Thanksgiving like I always did? Like you always. It is a hundred percent true. And that is a story word for word true. I don't want to ruin it for those who might read it because I think it's too funny to ruin. But it is true that two years, in two years, no one invited me to any party. And to my

15:19knowledge, no one had any parties. I had my own going away party as I do in the book, because I knew if I waited for someone else to say, Hey, let's all gather at, uh, you know, the blue caribou for a beer, it was not going to happen. It just wasn't going to happen. People would instead go, gosh, you know, we should have, we should have invited David out for a beer before he left. So I had my own goodbye party and I was shocked at how many people showed up. And I, my takeaway

15:53is maybe they don't really love their isolation. Maybe just no one has ever tried to have a party before. You're legendary. Now you'll be like, remember 20 years ago when that guy came and had a party. I think that is absolutely the truth. There was a guy, you know, there was a guy a few years ago. He had a party. I don't remember his name, but it's here a short time. He actually had a party and people actually showed up. Well, there are too many good stories to go over all of them. And I,

16:26but I do think again, people will enjoy the read. People in my industry will love it. And even if not, I've been talking to people on airplanes and everything else, showing them the book and reading them, making them read a paragraph or a passage. So I think it's, you know, a lot of fun. I'm hiring you as my agent. I do have a website with that, which has some more information and excerpts, two years, book.com, two years, book.com. No spaces. You spell out two or is it the number two?

16:57I'm sorry. You spell out two or. You spell out two, T-W-O, T-W-O. And it's available everywhere books are sold online. It's everywhere, everywhere. Get it from anyone. If you don't like Amazon, you can get it from Books a Million or Barnes and Noble or any. You notice people do hate Amazon when I've had a book and you promote an Amazon link, which is frankly, where most people buy their books, but there's a lot of people mad about that. Like, I will not buy from Amazon. Yeah. In the meantime, Amazon sells almost half the books that are bought in this country.

17:32People may say it. Your book is half price as of this recording right now. So it's 50% off on Amazon. My book? Yes. There's a sale. I just looked before we started. Yep. That's interesting. I know. I don't know how they do that or why, but. I better talk to my publisher. As long as you get your money.

CNN Days

17:55So I want people to stay tuned after a short break because David and I met when we were both working at CNN, when CNN, as I like to say, was still a news organization. And I was there from 1990 to 93. David State was there before me and stayed longer. And he's just got some reflections on Ted Turner. And we'll talk about some other things too. You want to tease anything before the break? Ted Turner was as wild and interesting and confusing as everyone says.

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Ted Turner Reflections

19:01We are back with my friend and author and producer, David Bernkopf. He and I worked together on my TV show, Full Measure. I was lucky enough to snag him for a couple of years doing some investigative producing. A couple of years? I was there for five years. Well, okay. More than a couple of years. And hated to lose you, but I totally understand you got to hate me and had to leave. But we met and became very good friends at CNN back in the day.

19:32And I think we should start by talking a little bit about your reflections on Ted. I'll give my tiny, tiny little, I know very little. But when I worked there at CNN as an anchor, hired in 1990 as a kid, and would never have dreamed at CNN in that era of giving our opinions on a newscast. It just wasn't like, oh, you have to keep your opinions out. We wouldn't have put our opinions in there in the first place. I, to this day, don't know. My main co-anchor that I sat with for most of the three years, most often, was Lou Waters. And I can't tell you whether he's a Democrat or Republican or how he feels about certain things,

20:05because it didn't come up. It wasn't part of the fabric of the newsroom. And I credit Ted Turner, in large part, for not interfering in an organization editorially, at least in my experience, in a way that he could have, because he was very ideologically, you know, entrenched in many of his thoughts and ideas. And he could have tried to make that newsroom, the first 24-hour news network, in his own image and make us put out propaganda. But he didn't do that.

20:36And we just intuitively knew that's not what that place was about. So I respect him a lot for the hands-off attitude in terms of the day-to-day news operation that I experienced. What are some of your thoughts after he has now passed? What you just said reminded me of something. I didn't even have this in my notes about things to say, but you reminded me. When Ted first started it, he, I mean, he was in Atlanta. So, of course, he would consider setting it up in Atlanta.

21:08But he made a point of keeping all of the editorial decision-making, almost all of it, in Atlanta. And his stated reason for that was that you had these New York, Washington access of news people who did things a certain way, saw things a certain way, saw themselves as very important people, and that by removing the decision process largely from Washington and New York, you would get a different product.

21:43That was smart. So true. And he was 100% right about that. Now, that's not to say, I mean, we had a Washington Bureau, we had a New York Bureau, we had Washington people who had worked for years in Washington, but also in gathering, and this is a function of who you're going to get, like go back to the book, who you're going to get is any better. But, you know, the reason I got hired at CNN, and I was there before it went on the air, two months before it went on the air.

22:15And the reason I got hired is that my college roommate at the time knew one of the first producers who was hired, who came from Birmingham, Alabama. And my roommate was from Birmingham. And so, you know, again, Birmingham is not a place filled with ideologically driven journalists. It just isn't. You wouldn't succeed there if you tried doing things that way. So even the producers and the writers, they tended not to be from Washington and New York.

22:48So that just created a whole different atmosphere. And there was also this attitude, and it was really true, that it was us against the world. And Ted was the perfect person for that, because who is more us against the world, me against the world, than Ted Turner? I mean, Ted was, when he started CNN, the thing most people knew about him was that he had won the America's Cup

23:19and had been really drunk afterwards and said some not-so-nice things to people, particularly some women. And, you know, we made improper comments toward when the ship was coming in. And, you know, my dad's, when I took this job, my dad was against it. He said, why would you go work for that crazy drunk guy? And there, like, I don't, I think, don't think anybody thought it could succeed, except maybe Ted.

23:53He just had this. What a visionary, you know, before you, don't lose your thought, but that also reminded me in terms of his vision and what could work.

Visionary Leadership

24:02Like, I'd been working there maybe a year or so, and I can't remember, there was some memo that came out that discussed, people have to really go back in time in their minds to before the technology we have today. We didn't really have a real internet going when I worked at CNN. And he was talking about, I don't know what the memo said, but it was about the future, the near future where TV would be, where people could pick the channels they want to watch and pick the news, even the story they wanted to see.

24:32And it was, that was unheard of. No one had ever, you know, there was no YouTube. No one had ever thought of anything like this, to my knowledge. And my mind couldn't wrap around it. I didn't know what he meant. Looking back, he's talking about exactly the system we have today, but this was before, you know, there was any, it just blows my mind that he could foresee that this was possible. Ted, for all of his ability to stick his foot in his mouth, and people did call him the mouth of the South, Captain Outrageous,

25:05he was almost never wrong with those kinds of predictions and decisions. For instance, here's a story, I don't know who remembers this. People now know about the Cartoon Network and Adult Swim being big successes, Turner Classic Movies. Both of those things came out of decisions he made to purchase things that were considered worthless. He bought the old MGM film library, paid millions of dollars for it.

25:40People said, why do you want these old movies? You can only get, you know, a few hundred dollars when you rent them out to local stations. Okay, well, I'm going to create a whole network with these old movies. And people love it. Same thing with cartoons. He bought all the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons that nobody was airing anymore, certainly not paying any money to air them. The Jetsons and the Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. Well, he owns all of that. He owns all that intellectual property now.

26:13And so then, oh my gosh, now they make a movie about the Flintstones or they make a movie about Scooby-Doo and they create Cartoon Network. And here's an idea. Let's take one of the obscure cartoon characters called Space Ghost and we'll make a goofy talk show out of it where the cartoon is interviewing real people. Like you'd have to be a drug addict to come up with that idea. And yet it worked. It was a success. So he had this knack of coming up with these ideas

26:44that everyone else thought were terrible ideas. And he was like, no, it's not. It'll work. And then they worked. Again and again and again, they worked.

26:54Well, one of his main, I guess this was his vision, was the news is the star, not the people in terms of the anchors. So as anchors, we were not promoted by personality. I heard, maybe you told me, someone told me at one point, or it was Lou Waters, there was discussion early on of not telling the anchors, telling the viewers their names. Like, it would just be anchors with no names because they're really just delivering facts and nothing else, you know. Well, you know, now we're back to the future. There are some stations experimenting with an entire newscast with no anchor.

27:29Have you seen that, where the reporters just- No, but I don't see why you can't try with today's technology. The show just begins with the lead story, the reporter standing there doing their live shot, explaining who they are, why do you need an anchor? It's so performative now in many cases. It's just, like you say, do you need that? I had a similar- Well, that's interesting, because there was nothing we did, both this is to the good and to the bad. There was nothing we did that was performative in those- Nothing. In fact, people criticize us for that.

28:00Like, oh my God, you're so dull sometimes. Well, that's part of the challenge is, especially now when people make a decision in 10 seconds or less whether they want to stick around and watch. So maybe the TED model is just so old-fashioned already. It's hard to think of it. It was so new, and now it's already old-fashioned. Well, when I got offered a job there, I was in Tampa, Florida, local news, got offered a job in Boston, big market, would have been a good job,

28:33maybe one or two other places, but also CNN, and CNN intrigued me. And even though I semi-accepted the Boston job, it wasn't in, the ink wasn't dry on that. And I wanted to go visit CNN, but people gave me a similar reaction as you got, not so much about why would you work for TED, but just sort of, you don't want to work there. And I loved CNN. I was watching Sonya live, you know, at noon during the time, and, you know, news in between. And so I went for my interview,

29:03and my news director in Tampa,

29:07well, so my deal was, I could get out of my contract in Tampa if I got a network job offer, or actually the way he put it was, when I signed my last contract there, will let you out of your contract if you get a network or big enough job offer. So I go to CNN, I do my interview, I come back, I try to get out of my Tampa contract, and my news director says, we're not letting you go. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. It's a network. He's like, no, no, it's not a network. I'm like, well, it's cable news network. He says, no, the networks are ABC, NBC, CBS.

29:39And then I said, well, it's a big job. And he says, no, no, that's not a big job. He goes, they're going to put you on at midnight and pay you nothing. And I remember thinking, I don't think they're going to do that. You know, my pay, okay, I'll tell you what I made. Back then, it was like $100,000. That was a lot of money in 1990 compared to what I was making in Tampa too. Right. And I was being put on day shift, like prime territory for news. So it was a great job. My interview was hilarious. They called me in and Bob Fernand took me into a studio

30:14and just said, okay, there's been some scenario. There's been a plane crash. You're going to do a live shot, basically about the plane crash from the studio desk. And they put a camera on you. Nobody's in the room with you. And they talk in your ear, which is pretty much how it goes when news breaks at CNN, at least at the time. He said, okay, there's been a crash. They give you very spotty information, the producer, and you're supposed to talk about it, you know, calmly and informationally. And I guess I passed the test

30:45because, yeah, I got offered the job, but that's how my CNN career started. You passed the audition. Yeah, with people saying that it wasn't worth taking, but I loved that job. I mean, those three years were so formative for me as a journalist and understanding, you know, switching from local news to national and international, where I stayed after that, but it was just fascinating. So I'll tell you one more thing, and then you ask you some more stuff about your early time.

Early CNN Days

31:10My first assignment was, I believe, the three o'clock and the five o'clock program. And three o'clock at the time at CNN was the international hour. I had never covered international news. I didn't watch international news. I didn't know anything about international news. And plop, they want to put me on the international hour. So I remember going home and telling my husband, Jim, who you knew, you know, this is my show. And I was all excited. And he's like, what? He said, do they know that you've never covered international news? I'm like, what do you mean?

31:42He's like, well, you don't know anything about that. And it did kind of panic me. And so I went into Paul Amos, who was the one who hired me. And I said, what time should I come in every day to do the three o'clock show? And he said, well, whenever you want. I'm like, well, you know, what time do you think? Like, I didn't know anything about this job. He's like, well, two o'clock. And I'm thinking, well, I got to read the scripts and stories and I got to get makeup. And two o'clock doesn't seem right. So I would come in at about 10 o'clock in the morning, you know, four hours, five hours early.

32:14And I would, in a sort of a panic, read every bit of wire and stories on every obscure international news story that I could. And I would take notes and I would look up locations on this geographical atlas that I had, you know, to find out where these places were in the world. Because on the international hour, really any show at any time, they can break in the news. A producer would say, there's been an incident at the election in Botswana and you better be able to talk about it, you know, coherently.

32:45So that was really good training for me. It's kind of eye-opening. You know, one of the stories you're talking about whether it was a network or not, this is something people probably don't realize. When we went on the air in 1980, covering the White House was controlled by access to covering the actual White House was controlled by, it was partially controlled by the White House. They issued credentials. But the actual ability

33:16to do certain things, have office space, or be in the pool, which is the group that shares information when you can't fit a thousand journalists in a room. That was controlled by the reporters. And so ABC, NBC, and CBS conspired initially to refuse to allow CNN camera crews to cover most things. We could cover the big events that the White House controlled,

33:47but anything that was more limited, you had to get your positions assigned to you by the other networks. And this was particularly about being in the pool, which meant someone flying on Air Force One, there's only room for maybe one TV person, one camera, and then at the end of it, and this is how a pool works for those who don't know, even though the reporter might work for CBS,

34:17they must share everything they learned with all the other journalists. It's just an agreement because we can't all cover it. You can't save anything. You can't give it to your people first. You have to share it with everyone first. And they refused to allow us to be a part of that system. And Ted Turner had to sue the networks just to be allowed to fully cover the White House. and before it went to trial, they agreed to let us into the pool.

34:48But not only New York News Director, it was the networks themselves looked down on us so much. And I don't think it was because they feared us at that point. They learned to fear us and they learned to imitate us. But at that point, you know, people did call us Chicken Noodle News. They thought we were a bunch of goofy kids and it was all a joke. And so it took a while to prove that that wasn't the case. And that was all because I think

35:18people bought into, back to Ted, bought into his dream and his drive. Well, I think a lot, correct me if I'm wrong or there was another milestone bigger, but I feel like in terms of CNN having a place on the map among other journalists was the Gulf War I when Iraq invaded Kuwait and I happened to be hired two weeks before that event, which was serendipitous in terms of my career because we went live

35:49like all Iraq all the time. And if you remember, they pulled off a lot of the anchors off the air and just kept us in steady blocks of I think something like four hours at a time, kept a few of us and I was chosen to be one of them. So I was on during primetime, you know, daytime and we were the only ones that had crews in key places when missile attacks were happening and the only ones that had reporters who could report so well and were so used to doing live unlike the networks were so good at it at the time

36:19and the networks someone at CBS later told me how this happened. It wasn't how I thought but they started taking CNN so we would we would be covering missile attack and they would start stealing taking our feeds and showing CNN on CBS so I would be seen as an anchor on all the other networks. Tell me what you knew about that. Yeah, so a lot of people have a they misremember this and they think CNN had live pictures

36:51from the start of the war and that's not true. What we had was a phone hookup that didn't get blown up because of the foresight of some people at the international desk who created used a different system that they knew would be more likely to survive an attack and so what we had was a graphic map with three reporters on the phone reporting the initial attacks live and then video fed in that wasn't live

37:22that covered it but because we were the only people to have both words and pictures coming out of Baghdad all the other networks asked for permission to take us and they all did take us at different times and you're right you were on everywhere and that was when the world the whole world noticed and believed that CNN was this important thing that could not be stopped at that point but there were other stories

37:52before that that you know I think we established a certain credibility being you know here's an example of how we were different when gunmen tried to kill Ronald Reagan outside the hotel I don't remember what year that was 1980 81 something like that and everybody breaks in all the networks of course break in to tell the story but then they go back at some point to regular programming

38:23well CNN just stays with the story just stays with it and so that is kind of the start of training people that news didn't have to go away it could be there forever now there are plenty of people who think that led to terrible things but it certainly led to changes in the way we expect information well another story you may be able to fill in a hole when Ted Turner

38:54conceived of a 24-hour news network wasn't he told by everybody I think a polling was done or surveys that said people would never watch it and it was just a great lesson in people don't know what they don't know and I think Ted may have said at one point if you ask people before there were passenger planes would you get in a big metal tube and you know rocket around in the air people would say no but look at where we are today do you know anything about that story I don't know the specifics of that story

39:25I do know that everyone who claimed to know anything about the television business or about the news business thought that CNN could not possibly succeed and one of the odd questions and I would hear this how are you going to fill 24 hours how on earth could you come up with enough news to fill 24 hours that was like a real concern at the time as opposed to oh my god we're never going to turn this

39:56thing off and Ted Ted just believed in it I don't even know honestly whether the top executives that he hired when he first hired them if they really believed in it or if they were just who else are you going to get yeah who else are you going to get and it sounds interesting it certainly sounded interesting to certain people but I don't know who other than Ted believed it I don't think

40:27I believed that it would last or become what it became how could you it was so different it was so visionary it seems today if you're not you know a million years old like me you don't remember these things but it really was doubted yes when we met what was your job what were you doing at CNN when I came in 1990 I was either producing documentaries or working on the row which was

40:58I just kind of saw you hanging around the newsroom a lot yeah then I was probably on the row which was doing script approvals for reporters in the field working on you know kind of fact checking what reporters were doing out there you eventually worked your way into management and what were what was the year and the circumstances under of your leaving well unfortunately Ted and this was in his obits he admitted to making one terrible mistake and that

41:28was selling the company and losing control of all the decisions he felt like he had to get bigger had to get bigger and so Time Warner initially bought the company and then they sold it to of all strange people they sold it to AOL it's hard to believe now but AOL at that point had all this cash because everybody had to use that stupid AOL dial-up to get on the then new internet well the

41:59people who ran AOL didn't know anything about anything they had come up with one idea dial-up internet and it was a great idea and they made a lot of money but they didn't know anything about anything else and they proceeded to pretty much destroy the company and so they were they paid a lot of money and they couldn't cover the debt and so they just started sending out word that they were looking for people to take buyouts and so right after

42:319-11 that was the last story I covered really I took a buyout and they were happy to see me go because they were happy to get rid of my at that point executive salary you know you've made the right decision to leave when you tell your boss I've decided to take a buyout and your boss goes okay nobody he didn't go oh are you serious you want to do this no he just saw the dollar signs and was happy so that's

43:01when I left and I tell people I came on the best day and I left on the best day and that's just about me personally I don't mean the particular days but I had the best time I love my time there and all the things I got to do and the places I went and thanks to Ted's vision and this is the best thing and thank you Ted for this the friendships that you built at that place because of the we tended to be kind of the same age

43:32we had us against the world mentality if you were a complainer you didn't last long so you had like and we socialized together because we worked such strange hours that like you and I are friends from I can't believe you were only there for three years because we're such good friends I know but that's the kind of atmosphere it was you just that was one of my shortest jobs but I still think of it as one of my longest in terms of impact it had

44:02I've been doing full measure going on our 12th year and I just said to someone the other day I still feel like and I was at CNN CBS over 20 I still feel like CNN was such a formative main job in my life and it was only three years but there was just so much I learned and did and you know I love my time at CNN and in fact I only left because two things I got offered jobs at the other networks took one

44:32at CBS and my husband just said I'd regret it if I didn't try to live in New York and work for one of the other networks I'm not sure that's true and I'm glad I I took the path I took but also part two by the time I went in for my last contract my I guess first contract negotiation to re-up after three years I was working more shows