By Jessica Yellin | The New York Times
In 2004, eight years after he’d sold CNN to Time Warner, Ted Turner, the network’s founder, sounded an alarm about the dangers of corporate ownership of news organizations. Mr. Turner wrote that in his day, “we put journalism first, and that’s how we built CNN into something the world wanted to watch.” In his view, “quarterly earnings obsessed” corporate owners would not have the same priorities because “the emphasis instantly shifts from taking risks to taking profits.”
His warning is especially chilling today, when the integrity of the press matters more than ever. Unfortunately, in the past 20 months CNN’s management has let down its viewers and its journalists by sidelining the issues and real reporting in favor of pundits, prognostication and substance-free but entertaining TV “moments.”
