What if CNN hadn't happened? -- Mitch Albom

[Bozita]

http://www.freep.com/features/living/mitch12e_20050612.htm


MITCH ALBOM: What if CNN hadn't happened?


June 12, 2005


BY MITCH ALBOM
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST


CNN was born 25 years ago this month. It was a simple yet awesome invention, the brainchild of Ted Turner, who saw a world of satellites and cable and got the idea for a 24-hour news channel. Turner is a man who often asks "Why not?" rather than "Why?"


Therein lies our difference.


Twenty-five years later, I find myself asking "Why?" all the time about CNN. Not just CNN, of course, but all it has spawned. You could argue that without CNN there is no Fox News, no MSNBC, no Court TV, no E! Entertainment, no Bill O'Reilly, no "Hardball," no Hannity or Colmes, no updates every five minutes on Michael Jackson in his pajamas.


Imagine a world without all that.


Would our lives really be lessened?

more...

[tuvor]

1. Wasn't Turner recently lamenting the direction CNN had gone? n/t

[AX10]

2. Down with CABEL "News"!

[stillcool]

3. CNN...in Ted Turner's day....

was a different animal than the one we see today. I recall seeing him on C-Span...a few years ago...where he said that with all his millions he did not have enough money to go up against those trying to buy him out.

[ls317]

4. I see Mitch as resurfaced

I am wondering did he write this story two weeks ago.
Lets not forget about his mistake nothing like writing an article before the event happens...
2005 Final Four( oops)

[Selatius]

5. Somebody else besides Ted Turner would've invented a CNN-like news channel

Assuming that Turner didn't decide to start CNN after seeing the expanding satellite network and the arrival of cable television, someone else probably would've seen what he saw and tried to do the same.

The writing was on the wall. Somebody else would've seen it, too. It's just that Ted Turner was first to see. If not him, then the next person, and if not that person, then the next, and so on.