CNN journalists, executives and luminaries past and present gathered Wednesday in Atlanta to honor the legacy of founder Ted Turner, whose grandson said he would be “the first to speak up” against the kind of media consolidation that the original cable-news network now faces.
With the Paramount Skydance takeover looming large, the Warner Bros. Discovery event was put together to honor the maverick businessman and media mogul who died last month at age of 87. Warner CEO David Zaslav was in the mix, saying “Ted changed the world, and we’re going to continue to try and live up to his vision.”
From there, speakers with fewer diplomatic obligations cut deeper into the issue, openly alluding to the current deal to sell CNN’s parent company to the David Ellison-led Paramount.
“Grandpa built CNN as an act of defiance because he believed fearless 24/7 independent journalism was oxygen for our democracy,” said Turner’s grandson, John R. Seydel III, according to CNN. “He would see what’s happening right now — larger and larger acquisitions; ‘60 Minutes’ hollowed; Dan Rather and hundreds of journalists around the world writing letters for editorial independence to be preserved and the First Amendment right for speech, especially for our storytellers, to be protected.”
“And by golly, he’d be the first to speak up,” Seydel added, “especially now, as the very network he built and the leaders that are in those positions these days are facing similar threats.”
Tom Johnson, former president of CNN, said his old network “will not bend and will not sway during this terrible, chaotic Trump era. We can best honor Ted by continuing to keep CNN as the most outstanding news network of them all.” His comments received a lengthy standing ovation from the gathering, held at the Atlanta campus where CNN launched in 1980, and livestreamed to Warner Bros. Discovery offices and employees around the world.
Speakers included Christiane Amanpour, Wolf Blitzer and current CNN CEO Mark Thompson.
“We should thank Ted and remember him forever,” Thompson said. “This is the house Ted built, his podium, his house, and the best thing we can do is strive to ensure that this great house continues to stand strong and proud.”
Event host Anderson Cooper called Turner “a complex man of passion and guts and daring and drive [who] saw what was possible when others didn’t, when others couldn’t.”
The post CNN Journalists, Execs Defiant at Ted Turner Event, Say Founder Would ‘Be the First to Speak Up’ Against Media Mergers appeared first on TheWrap.
