Videoage International November 2020

10 Book Review November 2020 V I D E O A G E W hen he launched CNN in 1980, Ted Turner — the businessman and founder of the world’s first 24- hour news channel — reportedly said, “Barring satellite problems, we won’t be signing off until the world ends.” At the time, there were many within broadcast television and legacy media circles who doubted the market potential and interest in the Cable News Network (CNN). And yet, in the present moment, which is saturated with information overload, it is hard to imagine, for better or worse, being without that constant access to up-to-the- minute news. Now, the general public seeks it out like a drug, out of habit, whether scrolling endlessly on one’s iPhone or tuning into one’s local news station for the evening report. With this insight about today’s media consumption in mind, author Lisa Napoli chronicles the origins of uninterrupted and addictive news culture in her newest book, Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, And The Birth of 24-Hour News (306 pgs., Abrams, 2020, U.S.$27). Napoli actually got her start at CNN as an unpaid intern working in the New York City and Washington D.C. bureaus. In her career as a journalist, she has covered everything from arts and culture to presidential campaigns. Her first book, Radio Shangri-La , looked at the media’s impact on Bhutan, while her second book, Ray & Joan , was a portrait of McDonald’s chairman, Ray Kroc, and his philanthropist wife, Joan. In a forthcoming book, Napoli will tell the story of NPR’s founding mothers. All of which is to say that Napoli is ideal for the job of weaving together the rich history of Ted Turner’s media revolution. And Up All Night could not have been timelier, since CNN’s 40th anniversary took place this past summer, in June 2020. Turner is verymuch at the center of the story. Up All Night is as much an account of how CNN came to be as it is a portrait of Turner himself. Napoli captures him at his most crude and provocative, while also showing the ambition and innovation behind the man. In addition to depicting Turner’s image as founder of CNN, the book goes into Turner’s stint as owner of the Atlanta Braves baseball team and his calling as a yachtsman. In Napoli’s portrayal, Ted Turner ventures into news media less out of a passion for delivering the news and the responsibility it entails, and more out of the business opportunity it represents. After inheriting his father’s billboard business and buying, then selling, a few radio stations in the American South, he bought a UHF television station on the brink of failure in Atlanta, Georgia. For Channel 17, “Ted settled on the letters WTCG, for ‘Turner Communications Group,’ as the name for his baby,” Napoli writes, and this moment became a starting point for Turner’s media empire. Turner does disappear from time to time over the course of the book. Napoli often steps back fromhim in order to incorporate other key figures and events in the development of CNN. Reese Schonfeld, the CNN co-founder who went on to help found the Food Network, was integral. The cast of characters also includes Jane Maxwell, who served in special events; Daniel Schorr, who was one of the first on-camera hires; Sandi Freeman, the news anchor who hosted Freeman Reports on CNN; and many others. Napoli connects the dots between dozens of people who would go on to work for CNN, and describes the drama of their hiring or firing, so that her book occasionally reads like a glossy gossip magazine while retaining the accuracy of a history book. With Up All Night , Napoli also attempts to identify how news media came to be ever-present in the lives of the general public. Before there was 24-hour news, there were pivotal moments in the history of news coverage that Napoli sees as harbingers of what was to come. Early on, Napoli looks at a news story from 1949, when a three-and-a-half-year-old girl became trapped in a well and, sadly, died. Reporters flocked to the scene, but it was the broadcast coverage of KTLA, a TV station in California, that would make the event crucial to today’s understanding of media culture. As Napoli points out, “Never before had it been possible to watch an event unfold, live, without physically being present.” Napoli’s book also shows how CNN not only responded to the existing demand of a 24- hour news cycle but also how it participated in bolstering that demand. CNN’s coverage of current events, such as the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981, would also become watershed moments in television history that changed how the news was reported. Prior to the 24-hour news cycle, the news was mediated by TV anchors reading prompts. However, with the change established by CNN, viewers could watch a story unravel live before their very eyes, making the impact that much more spectacular. Napoli returns to the story of a girl in a well later, this time in 1987. Eerily similar to the event back in 1949, a child who would become known as Baby Jessica fell into a well on her family’s land in Texas. This time CNN was there to cover it. Since the rescue operation took more than two days, the networks resumed their entertainment programming until it looked like the girl was going to be rescued. CNN was the only TV channel to stick with the story throughout all its developments. When Baby Jessica was finally safe, Napoli reports, “That night, CNN scored its highest ratings ever.” There is much to glean from Up All Night . Napoli has written an enticing book that is replete with humorous and sometimes stressful tales from the making of the first 24-hours news channel. As Napoli mentions, “Hardly anyone thought the idea [of CNN] could work, much less last — much less that a rogue like [Turner] could pull it off.” There’s even a chapter devoted to Turner’s visit to Cuba, when he was invited by Fidel Castro, that is sure to entertain. Napoli closes by briefly looking at the more recent shifts at CNN, including AT&T’s acquisition of parent company Time Warner, which has since been rebranded as WarnerMedia. Napoli concludes, “Despite the many changes, the name ‘CNN’ survives.” Journalist Lisa Napoli investigates how the roots of 24-hour news culture and the beginning of CNN all came about because of an idea from media mogul Ted Turner. News Til The End of The World: How Ted Turner Inaugurated A Media Revolution By Luis Polanco