A Word on Words; 2223; Porter Bibb

in a word down words a program and delving into the world of books and their authors this week porter bibb talks about it ain't as easy as it looks your host for or downwards mr john sigg and boller chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university well and john single welcome once again the word on words this week we're talking to port a bit an unlikely author you might say he's an investment banker will forgive the word only hurts the book ladies and gentlemen is one that fascinate you it's a book about the med media mogul ted turner for there we're about to turn the idea of him as a maverick was i didn't know tragically just how accurate the title on mad men which is what some people say

use of this trial have applied well it is it is a mad men and he's a genius and he's also i think the reason for my having written the book it's because i think it's the most important and i'm significant influence on contemporary culture certainly and the news business unless the twentieth century got that cover the book i love that sort of bizarre expression on his face it's called it ain't as easy as it looks to turn his amazing story it's truly an amazing story it's an amazing story because he does so many things well and for a kid who was beaten by a follicle there right now today he has come one long leg one long way well then the madman part of it though is an essential and defining element that chair he is that this is a diagnosed manic depressive he discovered that when he got seven or eight years ago his dad also was manic depressive and i think that's as much of

an influence in a defining hour limit as well as the year that vista that ted turner had so set his sights on it it made him learn to live in an invincible way he saw himself as being untouchable it knowing his manic depressive but the kind of manic depression that he experienced was primarily is called sick with the union is primarily a manic dr that that kept him going thirty six forty eight hours at a time when he was sailing winning setting ocean racing records around the world he could stay at the helm longer than anybody in history has ever sailboat it does the same thing in business and he would stay up two or three days and amazed that people around it would crash the crash quietly and disappear for twelve or eighteen hours and that was the depressive side me

the most dramatic anecdote in the book says atlanta has to do with that an airplane trip with a journalist and a girlfriend just the journalist has the next photo for the now think she has said her an intellectual role and he's engaging in an interview is going very well and then suddenly asks the wrong question he asks about linkage between personal morality that's right and the role of the meat yeah as a center of social trends describe one a paragon of family virtues other areas this world that the reporter is a very fine now writer and editor peter ross range had interviewed ted several times and he had spent literally

weeks putting this particular interview together and then turner had been up and down and incentives volatile mood swings and finally acceded to saying well we'll finish this song i'm going up the las vegas you you come along with me and a girlfriend than to be one of cnn's most prominent anchors and a year a former playboy magazine cover girl incentive for commercial airline commercial airline first class ted usually did not fly first class by the way it tends to be a very parsimonious on all fronts he says the wake up and down the media writer reporter <unk> ranger began to challenge him on the year the violence and the sextet was seven hundred and some of the you know the old films in and re run television series that turner broadcasting was broadcasting in those days and fed went absolutely ballistic he's not only a

lost his cool he grabbed a reporter's tape recorder if wanted to the floor he ripped the tape cassettes out day storm passed the stewardesses in one end the lavatory and tried to flush the tapes down airplane toilets and was absolutely out of control that the people find the blame thought they were going to actually or go down this man wins jumping up and down crushing the tape recorder in the aisle people in the first class section roll back the photo french wine to get the hell out of the cabin and no just as fast as those turner had gone ballistic he calmed down at me he said mr range now let's get on with the interview about human tape recorder i know i love you takes lithium now volunteers set about it even got eleven levels the mood swings and then it's important to know that lithium is not a

drug it's a natural and organic salt that's found practically everywhere in the world he is on at a stadium and rather heavy dose of lithium and that has had an enormous almost miraculous impact in terms of leveling out the mood swings doesn't change his personality doesn't make him any less determined than he'll ever be but it has kept him from the ceo of a chemical imbalance in his brain that sentiment of these highs and lows of manic depression owen is a city is allowed out he's a genius you say that he is of the land and without doubt the use of government or i when i kept bumping into anecdote which tell me how much he doesn't know did not know that and i

say so that he was interviewing who's helping needed was a lawyer and then the attorney general of a state for ten years before it came to prison and he unloads on lawyers in the presence of his own world and i mean he did not know that jane fonda and won two academy awards and it's also the economy around me baby that the ig report and i've made you got it and one thing that to work if it if you are going to be his girlfriend and said you know i don't mind when work visa lesser horseshoe could ever win an oscar phil ha ha ha i think and still other knowledge is there any geniuses air and the vision is there and that that is demonstrated in so many different ways and the sort of throws up one days talking about how to howl he used the media so that it becomes more and more tractor and he's great picking out experts in the field and throw and one of his greatest talents no doubt about it

and in the end and the moment talking about is that moment in which our duties as you were five operates almost as a throwaway question well i'm not sure it was so throwaway interesting things that i discovered when i started researching this book was the fact that most people tended to write turner often don't normally happen haven't paid much attention as being just a guy who shot with incredible latkes always apparently at the right place at the right time he got the braves in nineteen seventy six he bought them now so actually for nothing he paid a million dollars in cash and says he took over the other ball club his account and found a million dollars in an account from the beer and the popcorn that the braves previous owner didn't know they have to use their mind about it is their money to buy the team out today the braves franchise is probably worth about three hundred million dollars

that that in itself was not white bought the team he he had put the year the local new age of television station he owned in atlanta upon the satellite and he was now sending out leave it to beaver and i love lucy reruns that were ten fifteen years old all across north america annie needed sports arena he knew that in the end movies in sports would drive this is programming and he was the braves broadcaster and have been for several years in atlanta and he knew that the braves were about to pull up stakes a bit warily at that time they were losing his team in baseball had been in last place in the national league for seven consecutive years and how the owners felt that they had they needed a change of venue when ted got wind of that he realizes he'll lose the sports programming that he needed and he went in and made an offer and forty one million dollars cash and i think eleven

million dollars over eleven years which is able to pay off from the proceeds acquired the entire team lock stock and barrel that gave him a major major professional franchise allow them to broadcast all the other teams around the market whenever they played braves the interesting thing is that it wasn't like it was i think very very serious calculation on his part was cheap programming because he got eve managed on a bookkeeping basis to make the braves lose money just about every year that he's on them but that's because he he ascribes programming expenses to the brazen and as a result it's not only attacks last for the company but it's a huge part of the turner broadcasting program franchise he certainly hasn't and what one of the side points to be made when he took a brazen every told the people of the land he held a typical ted turner press conference and i'm going to have you and the world series in five years what took ten years but then he got them there

or twice shirt it up let's talk about that other sport that has consumed so much his life raising a war grayson on warren well it did until nineteen eighty nineteen eighty after you know already successfully defended the america's cup and one more ocean race isn't anybody in history the sport he walked away sold his boat sin and has never raced competitively sense talk about that one race that one race where he did stay at the helm longer than anyone what you said and i'd fasten that were heroic and tragic well that this was so one of the great classic races in the world it was actually the race that gave the cows in england gave the america's cup its name because we sent over a hundred and fifty years ago it got named america and the video the boat raced against queen victoria's the cream of the british ocean racing flee them

the american boat one and they they got there what was formerly the victoria cup and they changed the name to the america's cup that's what we've all been bracing for ever since but in the nineteen seventy nine fast that race if it actually has evolved into a week of different lengths races overnight one day races in and they have the championship race which is a three day race from cows so which is on a little island in the english channel off they raced to fasten it the fastener light in ireland and then back to cows that english channel can be very treacherous it that sank the spanish armada several hundred years ago and it's been the nemesis of sailors throughout history there were about three hundred the yachts raced in this particular fast that race and typhoon winds of seventy eighty miles an hour it rose on that the

second day and just win the race was a midpoint and turner happen to be among the three or four boats was leading and he had he was ahead of the fleet they they rounded fast that like more on their way back and had the sale back through several hundred yachts and this is in the face of seventy eighty mile an hour winds fifty to eighty foot waves which is tearing all these yachts a part of most talented not have worked with turner was smart enough to bring on board something called storm try sale percent sales that would it would not fall apart and this kind of when turner stayed at the helm of his boat while the rest of his crew was weiss to the railing including assaulting a sixteen year old son who is sick in the galley you use at the helm for over thirty hours and he sailed into plymouth harbor and crossed the finish line and he didn't see any body greeting and he was wondering where they only

crowds weren't any figure he probably had lost he had previously a couple of years earlier set a record it at the race and now we've got ought got unloaded gun the dock and started walking up the key in and all of a sudden the television cameras and reporters all clustered around and they they said do you you've just taken part in one of the greatest ocean disasters in sailing history over a hundred boats insight and thirty one sailors that were drowned they had the british navy in the end the marines out there with helicopters and the story is picking people about the english channel and so if you know only one you broke the record against it or below and you know it really has his penchant for putting his foot of mouth so on there's no doubt world anyway in his comments after that victory were so in a book so inappropriate on the other hand i've read about are not an

un understand i think that just does not express what he really feels and sometimes he doesn't feel as an owner personally well i think is a page is nothing else he's a bundle of contradictions john and anne turner is a very emotional man and he's the kind of guy who cries but the sad part in movies it is very good to his emotions are right up up there on the surface of his skin but he also puts his foot and mouth more times and not it draped an american flag around his shoulders when that i think that television cameras that fast that they're asked him what what he thought he told the british press said oh you guys just got them luck he said that when the spanish armada came across at they hadn't had a storm like this you know all these values best that i can work what they wanted was so some scientists and someone's of solemnity and a condolence for all the guys we lost a lot of the terror does the same thing out time and time again

here in tiananmen square easter members of the international press corps in without knowing what he was saying and told him the date he really didn't feel very sorry for the students who caused the riots he said they if they wanted to change things they should've stayed within the law and the government had to do david madden not appalling and when anybody in this country thought about fidel castro mean he's like felton l castro who announcement sometime women still does so it is one of the cat castro's your greatest friends and and ted turner still gets a diplomatic pouch least once a month filled with cuban cigars delivered to see and center in atlanta now we talk about the genius and how much of its calculation you take us through the area a droid and fast paced way his understanding of the electronic revolution and how he can make the station work

for in a satellite were formed the cable work for and how many different ways he's able to use all that and then there is a meeting and he draws all of his colleagues and associates around the ideas of bob hope is the one whose comments probably most relative nobodies the turner broadcasting starter and we don't have a turner broadcasting pr director not the baa black leather by now we're talking about having a mind stretch everybody is going to say what they think well what about an all music station and the number will arise in court about all sports edition and finally he throws out what he really had only a four and it's the last thing anybody thought he would go and see all these twenty four hour all news network and

this is from the man who would walk around his television station atlanta shouting no news is good news in the famous world famous anchor man now in a paper bag because he didn't want to face the public with any bad news in a german shepherd for co anchor ted turner also engineer davidson who's the fcc requires a certain minimum of public service and news programming to keep your license every week ted knew we couldn't be three other local station's ratings we couldn't sell ads against he was number five out of five stations in the towns only he put his news on at three am in the morning at all the other stations turned their signals offer to a center everyday consistently day in and day out one his ratings period with business programme and now he throws that off the wall idea at people who certainly than expected and the day all around the world the

legacies revolutionize the news business it's not just around the world it's the route every aspect of media for the new york times as well as the cia and the pentagon and the white house watch cnn when there's a world crisis see what's happening a print reporters have to pick it up off of cnn today he's got the largest news gathering organization the world has got live satellite transmission from anywhere any hot spots that world and we all there isn't a person in this earth and didn't see an end and get related to the television screen during the gulf war when we had behind the lines live television coverage of the war from the enemy's point of view and nbc tried through tom johnson who was really running the news operation for the flow of false rumor or maybe it was in good faith that they're learning into real problems that i happen here and it was in the al rashid well and then then dc told to call ted and said that

iran may be allies coalitions bombing target list at the al rashid is going to be history and turner not they didn't tell his troops how to operate it didn't stand that they have the bulkheads and and manipulate their coverage of the golf or buddy did the most important thing that that an owner broadcast on or could do it was in direct contact with his team peter arnett bernard shaw and the others who were representing cnn and he said it's up to you guys but i've got the way i've got a plan standing by to get you out of there you know you're going to stay as long as you wanted and they as journalists independent of the boss chose to stay and don johnson find a guest colin powell a telephone call involves a wooden possibly bomb that obama friend bernie shaw of their dignity you can imagine a news media director like johnson calling up the chief of the pentagon chief of staff in and saying you can't you can't keep <unk> in the hotel in iran analyst liz another

scene where he's either got all of these cable people downstairs waiting and he has to deliver to him somebody who's going to impress them that he is serious about this matters and relaunch relaunch that's exactly right because ted and he had tried in nineteen seventy nine to get the cable industry behind the idea of an all news network and they had blown i'm awfully they couldn't see the sense of a nobody in the industry gave him any support and he came back a second time with a rather more organized program in and by that time a diary schoenfeld has really executing ample matter cnn in greece that had spent a lifetime building for this moment when he could launch an all news network but they still another staff or a program format or any clue as to what they're going to do and reset somehow were seduced dan schorr the former cbs newsman and then that day the last living veteran of the old edward murrow edward r murrow came

from cbs out to this cable convention in las vegas i'm sure was i'm sure what the hell he was doing there and there are certainly new and after beating around the bush for a few minutes they got right down to it and ted said i need names i need a star i need somebody to go down there and face three or four under these cable operators and i'll make it worth your while i don't care what you want you you tell me i'm not sure looked at me he said i only know i read in the papers about this guy and is a guy has an anchor with a paper bag over his head and german shepherd says he hates news in and i covered this guy is gonna buy up a bunch of hotels and blown up on a slow news day so which was a serious turner quote at one point after a tremendous amount of sweating and ted turner finally took out at a decent hotel stationery from the drawer and shoved under shores raman said you write the contract you tell me what you what we're going to go down there and so sure said well i will

have total other editorial control and won a lot of money and i wanna be my own boss find your eye or hear the first rick pluta reporter for cnn they went down and they gave a year of song and then shown for these cable operators and lo and behold eleven months later cnn on time on schedule turned on the air and it's never gone out for you know i had it i had issues or investment bank and the truth is real for more than a year of former singer sharon was the white house correspondent for newsweek you made the documentary a film with before you decided that there is a poem i love money my guess is that this book put you back in a real sense of journalism i mean you write like a song and the story saying when and i congratulate you on that there's not a lot of sex appeal in this book and a lot of it has to do with those first through seemed to set terms marriage to jane fonda the

ceremony in atlanta was both with her friend tony lee the dichotomy is remarkable ultimate home and in each other says a man as i say extreme contradictions is that it's a lot of people have read this book and said gee mr bibb somehow was a passionate fan and a half and a protege of mr gerson the fact of life is and i'm not a friend i've known him my fallen from nineteen seventy four when i made a documentary of his first effort to break into america's cup with that i actually find him a very heartfelt alike in an almost impossible for you know the fact of life is that he's so contradictory that this is a challenge for anybody and i'm trying to put a picture of all the sides warts and all and let's let the reader judge from self one thing is indisputable on my mind is the impact that he's had on and the median on the news business and contemporary culture coming back to that wedding i i

found it remarkable ted turner who knows kings and princes and presidents and premieres it was not reported anywhere that the best man winnie mary jane fonda was a seventy odd year old black man who's been with your family all those lighters think a fault that is ted turner's surrogate father and brother he taught this this man how to shoot how to fish he taught him about conservation wildlife most importantly mismanagement of jimmy brown talk ted turner sales when he was eleven years old and the ellis island marriage hanoi jane the exercise fanatic and and that they'd make it well i think they're well they they are on the surface and they certainly would have never come together twenty years ago or thirty years ago but one of the very things that i try to show in the book is the the curious parallel between their lives both of them had

fathers who were absolutely overbearing an unyielding and never gave them any any creditor or praise both of them had parents who committed suicide both of them there were exceptionally bright are exceptionally bright and our incredible overachiever is both of them have incredible high iq has genius level like use jane slightly smarter on an iq level in thirty years and both learn about a curious ability to reinvent themselves almost every decade on the decade jane has gone from sex kitten to serious actress to workout queenan no and business lady and now she's a producer and and now i think a very very influential a political activist and turner who who grew up in the south even that was born in cincinnati as completely misstating the whole civil rights revolution had no idea what was going on in the south when he was sailing and buildings businesses now becoming

author of that ad as easy as it looks as ben our guest ana were downward your host as ben johnson paul or chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was produced in the studios of wbez in nashville thing