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                                                                                MAN OF THE YEAR, Page 28

TED TURNER

Inside the World of CNN


How a handful of news executives make decisions felt round the
world

By RICHARD ZOGLIN/ATLANTA


    It is Wednesday afternoon, the woman who has accused
William Kennedy Smith of rape has just begun to testify, and
producer Bob Furnad is having a Maalox moment. After two days
of mostly pallid testimony by other witnesses, prosecutor Moira
Lasch has suddenly called the accuser to the stand. But Furnad,
who is running the control room, has just learned that Terry
Anderson, the last American hostage to be released, is scheduled
to make his first appearance in Damascus at 3:30 p.m. -- smack
in the middle of CNN's trial coverage. What should Furnad do:
continue to cover the long-awaited testimony of the accuser in
the most publicized rape trial in history or cut away to Terry
Anderson's press conference?

    As the crunch hour approaches, the atmosphere in the
control room becomes subtly charged. Furnad, legs jiggling
nervously, lunges toward the monitors, computer screens and
phone buttons arrayed before him, yelling orders. CNN president
Tom Johnson shows up, hovering in the background. Ed Turner,
another top CNN executive, appears, looking worried. "Of all the
convergence of events," he says. "Six years they hold the guy
. . ."

    The decision is made quietly, almost imperceptibly: no
matter what is happening at the trial, CNN will cut away to
Anderson. Their best hope is that his appearance will coincide
with the trial's afternoon recess, due to come at 3:30.

    The half-hour break arrives on schedule, but Anderson does
not. "Come on," mutters Furnad, "it's gotta happen before 4
o'clock." On the air, reporter Charles Jaco is killing time by
talking to a legal expert. Finally Anderson appears. Furnad
shifts into overdrive: a switch back to Atlanta anchor Lou
Waters; a shot of Anderson arriving; a split screen showing
Anderson's Associated Press colleagues in New York City; a phone
interview with John Anderson, Terry's brother.

    Terry Anderson is talking now, but Furnad's main concern
is the West Palm Beach courtroom, where testimony is resuming.
"C'mon, Terry, speed it up," he urges. At 4:20 Anderson finally
finishes. Turn on the anchor's mike ("He's leaving! Talk,
Lou!"), cut to a commercial, then back to the trial. Only seven
minutes of the accuser's testimony has been missed; her
emotional account of the incident is yet to come. Count it
another CNN success.

    But hardly an unmixed one. Unlike its much praised
performance during the Persian Gulf war, CNN's
pantyhose-to-towel coverage of the Smith rape trial was
controversial. The all-news network pandered to tabloid tastes,
critics complained, or ignored more "serious" news, or cut away
too often for commercials, or invaded the victim's privacy, or
tried to guard it too assiduously. Nonetheless, the trial
illustrated the essence of CNN: the coverage was live, dramatic,
exhausting, messy and irresistible.

    The trial also proved to be a tricky test for the people
who decide what mix of news CNN will beam to its global
audience. As the network's impact has grown, those decisions
have become more crucial. To the extent that the images CNN
chooses to show -- Boris Yeltsin defying coup plotters or a
reporter sifting through bomb damage in Baghdad -- are important
in shaping people's attitudes and governments' policies, a
handful of news executives in Atlanta are among the world's most
influential journalists.

    Ted Turner may be the only one who ever thought CNN could
come so far so fast. When Turner first launched the upstart
24-hour news operation in 1980, under the guidance of its
brilliant but volatile president Reese Schonfeld, it had a staff
of 300 and a newsroom tucked into the basement of a converted
country club. Technical flubs were common: on the very first
hour of CNN's first day, a story about baseball star Reggie
Jackson was cut short when the transmission from New York
suddenly went dead.

    Today CNN has a staff of more than 1,700, a global reach
in excess of 75 million homes and a budget that keeps growing
while the three broadcast networks cut back. Its headquarters
are spread over several floors in a hotel-and-shopping complex
in downtown Atlanta, formerly called the Omni and now dubbed
CNN Center. The network has established its credibility, and it
makes money: a profit of $134 million in 1990 and most likely
more in 1991.

    Yet the crucial decisions are still made in
seat-of-the-pants fashion, chiefly by three top executives. The
veteran of the trio is Ed Turner, a charter member of the CNN
staff, who is probably best known (as news stories quoting him
invariably point out) for not being related to owner Ted. As
executive vice president in charge of newsgathering, Turner is
responsible for CNN's worldwide network of 95 correspondents.
He is the soul of CNN: serious, pragmatic, not flashy but
fiercely competitive. "No, we don't throw money around like the
networks," says Turner about CNN's relatively tightfisted
operation. "But who's expanding and who's shrinking?"

    If Turner is in charge of getting news into the building,
Furnad, senior executive producer, is the man responsible for
getting it on the air. An 18-year veteran of ABC News who joined
CNN in 1983, Furnad is a feisty field general who can berate
his troops for a technical slipup one minute and praise them
warmly the next. Staffers stand in awe of his poise and judgment
under fire. "As wild as he is," says anchor Bobbie Battista,
"there isn't anybody I'd rather have in there."

    Overseeing the entire network is Johnson, the former
publisher of the Los Angeles Times who was installed by Ted
Turner as CNN's third president in August 1990. Much of
Johnson's impact at CNN comes from the contrast he provides to
the man he replaced: Burt Reinhardt, a respected,
budget-conscious but rather aloof news executive. Johnson, 50,
is an affable Georgia native with a Rolodex full of political
contacts, dating from his years as an aide to President Lyndon
B. Johnson. He has taken a hands-on approach to CNN in more ways
than one. During the gulf war he brought cookies to bleary-eyed
staffers working on the weekend. When ABC signed up Mikhail
Gorbachev and Yeltsin for a joint interview after the failed
coup, Johnson flew to Moscow and personally negotiated with them
to do separate interviews on CNN first.

    Johnson is a relative newcomer to television, a fact
regarded as a handicap by some, a strength by others. He admits
he is still learning the medium. "I'm not going to try to become
an expert in TV technology," he says. "I want to surround
myself with people who are better than I am in the various
disciplines. My job is to lead."

    Some CNN insiders feel his leadership has been lacking.
There is much talk these days at the news channel about the need
to forge a new direction for the '90s, and a suspicion that
Johnson has not found one. If the gulf war was a watershed event
for CNN (ratings hit a one-day peak of 9.5, meaning 5.4 million
homes were tuned in during an average minute, in contrast to a
year-round average of 410,000 homes), the aftermath was
something of a crash to earth. Viewership dropped, not just to
prewar levels but even, for a time, slightly below. CNN is still
struggling to find a way to consistently attract more than a
relatively small core of news junkies.

    Toward that end, Johnson is trying to stress more
perspective and analysis in CNN's reporting and to find more
"anchors who are journalists." He has hired veteran reporters
like Deborah Potter (from CBS) and Brent Sadler (from Britain's
ITN), and is trying to woo Bill Moyers away from PBS. CNN has
also set up a 60-member election unit, which will produce a
daily half-hour program of campaign news starting in January.

    AT THE SAME TIME, JOHNSON is pushing to expand the
all-news network into new venues. CNN has a daily news-feed
service that supplies stories to 265 broadcast stations, a radio
network with nearly 600 affiliates, and a Spanish-language
service. In January it will begin supplying specially tailored
packages of news and features for airports and
supermarket-checkout lines. Talks are under way to provide a
similar service for McDonald's. CNN in health clubs, rail
stations and post offices could be next.

    The goal is to find as many uses as possible for the raw
material that pours in every day to CNN's newsroom. The workday
officially begins at 8 a.m., with a meeting chaired by Ed Turner
to review what stories are expected that day. Producers and
writers then repair to circular desks, where they assemble the
various hours of programming that make up CNN's schedule. Unlike
the broadcast networks, which gear their activities to two or
three shows each day, CNN is on a never-ending deadline.
Breaking news is shoved onto the air as soon as it arrives. And
somewhere in CNN's world it is always prime time. Says Stephen
Cassidy, senior international editor: "It's like working for a
boss who's up 24 hours a day."

    The pace can be exhausting. One former CNN newswriter
describes a "feeling of chaos" in the newsroom: "There were a
lot of young producers and tape editors doing a lot of
shouting." But most staff members praise the operation's
informality and lack of bureaucracy. "My counterpart at ABC
would have to go through 15 committees," says Simon Vicary, an
executive producer who specializes in international affairs. "I
can just turn my head around and get a decision made."

    Ted Turner takes little part in day-to-day operations
(though he approves major budget expenditures and contributes
occasional story ideas, many of them relating to his
environmental concerns). But his influence can be felt in
everything from a prohibition against the word foreign (the
preferred word is international, a choice that draws rolling
eyes from many staffers) to the loyalty and long tenure of a
high proportion of CNN employees.

    CNN also reflects Turner's belief that TV news can be done
far more cheaply than it was at the once profligate broadcast
networks. CNN salaries are still lower than those at the
networks, though the disparity is shrinking. (A correspondent
joining CNN today typically makes $60,000 to $70,000, while a
rookie network reporter earns around $100,000.) And CNN gets
more out of its people. Unlike the networks, where
correspondents have to fight for airtime, CNN uses practically
everything its reporters file. "There's a constant effort to
maximize profit for labor expended," says Jerusalem bureau chief
Charles Hoff. "It's like a meat-packing plant that uses every
piece of the animal." (Among CNN's cooperative ventures is an
agreement with TIME to share poll data.)

    Under Johnson, CNN's penny-pinching habits have been
somewhat relaxed. Early in the Smith trial, for example, Furnad
learned that Greta Van Susteren, one of CNN's Washington-based
legal experts, had to be in Detroit for two days the following
week. The cost of setting her up in a Detroit studio would be
$2,000. Furnad was inclined to get another Washington
commentator, but Johnson decided to spend the money. Result: Van
Susteren was on hand for the verdict.

    Conscious of CNN's role as the de facto network of record,
Johnson and his colleagues are especially sensitive to matters
of fairness and balance. The news network has been diligent
about running in full the candidacy announcement of every
major-party presidential aspirant. Live coverage of presidential
press conferences is another CNN tradition. But when Bush called
a session during the Smith trial to announce that Samuel Skinner
would be his new chief of staff, Furnad chose to stick with the
trial. Johnson ventured into the control room during the
conference and nervously watched as Bush took questions, unseen
by CNN viewers. "I still feel some anguish about that," he said
later.

    Even in handling the trial itself, an instinct for
fairness carried CNN through the slow stretches. "If you leave
out one witness because he or she is dull, you lose a building
block," said Furnad. "We have some obligation to the audience
to be consistent in the way we cover it." Viewers may have been
alternately bored and titillated, but they were not
shortchanged. For all the salacious material, CNN's coverage was
sober, well balanced and informative. That it was a ratings hit
as well (the average audience was 1.9 million homes, nearly five
times normal) should come as no surprise -- or be cause for
dismay. After years of churning out the news, CNN has earned the
right to its blockbusters.