AILSA CHANG, HOST:
When the U.S. and Israel bomb Iran and start a war, we know about it moments after it started, sometimes even moments before. When Russian tanks cross the border into Ukraine, we watch as it is happening. When, after five decades, the U.S. returns to the moon, that feat is beamed around the world. This access to immediacy, our ability to be there as history is unfolding, much of that is possible thanks to the vision of CNN founder Ted Turner. Turner died this morning. He was 87 years old. Affectionately known as the Mouth of the South, he transformed the way the world got its news when he founded the 24/7 news network in 1980. And one person who played a key role in that legacy is CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour, who started at CNN as a desk assistant back in 1983. Welcome, Christiane.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Wow, Ailsa. Thank you. And the way you put it really brings back so many memories.
CHANG: I can imagine. Well, as I mentioned, you began at CNN almost at the very beginning of the network. What was it like back then to be there? What was Ted Turner like back then?
AMANPOUR: It was amazing. I joined three years after the start, so I've been there 43 years. CNN is in my DNA, but who knew? You know, a lot of us - people of my generation who joined as desk assistants or video assistants or whatever, the VJs, video journalists, and the like - we literally used to say to ourselves, well, we're all just undergrads. None of us have gone to graduate school, but this is our graduate school on the job...
CHANG: Yeah.
AMANPOUR: ...And we're going to get all the experience we need to go off to the big leagues. And so it was this unbelievable gathering of eager, passionate, mission-driven young journalists who had the rarest of rarest things, and that was a boss who we worshiped and admired. I mean, it is not too much to say that he was the commander and we were the foot soldiers. And when Ted Turner said something, we saluted and said, yes, sir and did it because we knew that this was somebody who guided us correctly, guided the world correctly, and with his information revolution, decided to do something to the benefit of the world. It wasn't what we see now, with the cynicism and the destructive elements that we can see in so much of today's mass media.
CHANG: Yeah.
AMANPOUR: It actually was born to try to really kind of save mankind.
CHANG: How about for you personally? How did Turner's vision of the world and of journalism's role in it influence your own approach to your own work as someone who has helped explain so many world events to audiences for decades?
AMANPOUR: It was fundamental. I absolutely could not believe my luck when I ended up, as I say, an undergrad desk assistant in Atlanta. I'd come from England. I'd, before that, come from Iran. So Iran is what turned me into wanting to be a journalist. And I'd landed in Atlanta, of all places, at the Mouth of the South's, you know, chicken noodle news...
CHANG: (Laughter).
AMANPOUR: ...To try to become a foreign correspondent. And that's the vision I had. And I could see it being emulated all around me. It was being done. We became the preeminent international news gatherers because of CNN's vision and because he insisted - because of Ted Turner's vision, who insisted that we cover all sides of every story.
During the first Gulf War, which launched CNN as an international behemoth, Ted said that we had to be in Baghdad as well, which was on the receiving end of all the firepower from the United States. There was a raid in Saudi Arabia to try to get Saddam out of Kuwait. And he said, we have to be behind enemy lines. We have to cover all sides of the story, and so he made it voluntary.
CHANG: On a personal level, though - I mean, he was known for having this huge personality. Some people might call it brash. He could certainly rub a lot of people the wrong way. Was that part of his charm, Christiane, or...
AMANPOUR: Yes.
CHANG: ...Did it sometimes interfere with his mission and the way he related to people ever?
AMANPOUR: You see, I don't think so. Ted was a very different person. He was an individual, and I just loved it. Every time he said something controversial, I'm thinking, wow...
CHANG: (Laughter).
AMANPOUR: ...He's got such cojones, you know? And he's dashing, and he's handsome, and he's swashbuckling, and he's with us. He lived, you know, in Atlanta, but often, he stayed in his sort of office apartment above the studio, above the newsroom for whatever reasons. And he would come down in the crack of dawn morning to get his crappy coffee from the break room right near the news desk and everything, and he would be in his pajamas and his robe and we'd go, whoa...
CHANG: (Laughter).
AMANPOUR: ...What is happening? And it would be like, you know, parting of the Red Sea. We'd all stand back, and Ted would, you know, sashay through the newsroom. But Ted was with us.
CHANG: Yeah. You know, so much has been said about the immediacy that CNN brought to broadcast news, giving audiences a chance to feel like they are there as something is happening. But do you think that there have been costs to that? Does that expectation of trying to be fast and on all the time, can that sometimes take away from the journalistic mission, too?
AMANPOUR: Look, I think that's a valid question to ask throughout the decades that followed the launch of CNN. And there have been many, many iterations of trying to, you know, toe the actual journalistic line, not just at CNN, but in many, many other places. I always say that he's the one who started 24/7 for all the right reasons, including to break down the barriers, when he sent it internationally, between authoritarian states and their people. Those with a satellite dish or with the ability to, you know, connect could see a whole different world view, so it was super important.
But I do agree that there has been, you know, subsequently, too much of a focus on the titillating, on the sensational, on lots of things that have degraded our public square and our public discourse and, therefore, our civil society and our civic community. And I think Ted was always super conscious of that. You know, when he did the - he ordered the cameras to be 24/7 on little Jessica in the well - that was practically at the beginning of CNN...
CHANG: I remember that.
AMANPOUR: ...That was to bring a community together. As well as being excellent for ratings, it brought people together. The whole country was on the edge of their seat, hoping that this little girl would be pulled out alive. And by and large, it wasn't political. It was about policy. It was about the actual events. It was about facts. It was about reporting the story. It was about being eyes and ears. And those are the days that I miss.
CHANG: CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour, thank you so much for sharing your reflections about Ted Turner with us.
AMANPOUR: It was my pleasure and my privilege. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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