When the news broke Wednesday that Ted Turner, the renowned media and sports mogul, had died at the age of 87, leading voices in the media and entertainment world showered praise upon his legacy.
“He believed deeply in the power of ideas, in doing things differently and in building platforms that could inform, inspire and connect people around the world,” said David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery. “That belief inspired generations of leaders, myself included. He did not just disrupt media. He transformed it.”
Rupert Murdoch, chairman emeritus of the Fox Corporation, commended Turner for founding CNN, the world’s first 24-hour news network, which helped shape the world we live in today.
“Ted Turner’s vision for 24-hour cable news transformed the media industry and gave viewers everywhere a front seat to witness history unfold,” Murdoch said in a statement. “His impact as a trailblazer has left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape. He was a great American and friend.”
That last line struck many by surprise, given the heavily publicized public feud between the two going back decades.
The enmity presumably began in 1983 during the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, a 630-nautical mile race starting in Sydney, News South Wales, and finishing in Hobart, Tasmania. Turner, an avid sailor who’d graced the cover of Sports Illustrated after winning the 1977 America’s Cup, came out of retirement to command an 80-foot vessel dubbed Condor. And Condor did emerge victorious, but only on protest. You see, Turner’s yacht was run aground in the final minutes of the race by Nirvana, an 81-foot vessel owned by Marvin Greene of Reeves Communications.
According to Neil Chenoweth’s book, “Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Media Wizard,” Turner delivered “a long and rambling speech” at the post-race dinner “in which he vented his displeasure not toward Greene or the crew of Nirvana but toward the man he believed was a sponsor of Nirvana, Rupert Murdoch,” going so far as challenging him to a televised fistfight in Las Vegas.
Things heated up further in 1996, when Murdoch spent over $100 million to launch the Fox News Channel as a direct competitor to CNN. Turner, meanwhile, had recently sold his Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner Inc.
As The New York Times reported, “While Time Warner came very close to a deal with the News Corporation, the company ended up agreeing to double the distribution of MSNBC, while refusing to carry the Fox News Channel on any of its systems.”
But Murdoch had the Giuliani administration on his side, thanks to Murdoch’s hiring of former Giuliani advisor Roger Ailes — who was later forced to resign over a slew of sexual harassment allegations — to lead the fledgling news network. Turner loudly and repeatedly accused Murdoch and Fox News of trying to get Giuliani to “intercede on Fox’s behalf,” reported the Times, further alleging that Murdoch had “bought the government of New York City” and had Mayor Giuliani “in his pocket” by running an endorsement for him in the New York Post and giving his wife a job as an anchor on WNYW-TV, Channel 5, which Murdoch owned. (Giuliani denied carrying water for Murdoch.) Turner further compared Murdoch to Hitler — or “the late Fuhrer,” as he put it — to a group of journalists, saying the two employed similar yellow journalism tactics in smearing the opposition.
Seven years later, in 2003, Turner took aim at Murdoch once more over his support for the war in Iraq, first challenging him to another fistfight and then branding him a “warmonger.”
“Fox News, which is controlled by News Corp, was one of the staunchest pro-war news organizations in the U.S. and its pro-Bush stance helped it overtake CNN, founded by Mr. Turner, as the most popular news network during the conflict,” The Guardian reported at the time, prompting the following response from Turner: “Just because your ratings are bigger doesn’t mean you’re better. It’s not how big you are, it’s how good you are that really counts.”
The final blow came in 2011. Following the revelation that the Murdoch-owned U.K. tabloid News of the World had been hacking voicemails, Turner called on Murdoch to step down.
“I’m past retirement age now. So, I’m 72. That’s a little late to be running a corporation. Murdoch’s still doing it at 80, but for not for much longer, I’m afraid. I think he’s going to have to step down,” Turner told Bloomberg.
“This is serious… It’s going against the law. You know, not even Rupert Murdoch should be allowed to break the law. Nobody should…,” Turner continued. “He should have known. I mean, he was chairman of the board. He’s responsible. I took responsibility when I ran my company. You never heard me say, ‘Well, I didn’t know.’ You never saw me get in that kind of trouble, did you?”
Turner also told Bloomberg that he’d buried the hatchet with Murdoch: “I did, and I still have made amends. I’m just, quite frankly, I’m very disappointed that this has occurred. A major media company should definitely be following the law, that’s all.”
In a 2019 interview with Variety’s Cynthia Littleton, Turner reiterated that he and Murdoch were on good terms.
“Rupert and I have long since made amends,” he said. “Years ago (I was out of the media industry at that point), I invited him to lunch at Ted’s Montana Grill in New York, and we had a great time catching up.”
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