Also at the Atlanta History Center website. As at least and i are talking some of your weapon questions and you can use the q and a feature at the top of your screen and i will try to integrate as many of them as i am allowed. We will be broadcasting excerpts of this interview friday so you will hear me do what we call a real id to keep consistent sound while we are going and im so excited to speak with lisa who got first her first journalism job at cnn after interning at cnns new york and dc bureaus as a teenager. She reported for the new york times, place, msnbc and other outlets and is author of two previous books, radio shangrila and Raymond Jones about the man who made the mcdonalds portion and the woman who gave it all away so lisa, thank you for being with us. Im excited to talk about this book. Thank you, i used the Atlanta History Center for research so im excited to be virtually with the constituency now. Glad to have you and i think its difficult for some of the people who are watching to imagine life for news was accessible all the time. What Television Even looked like before cnn launched so what was this idea of 24 hour , 24 seven table news network or cnn. Until ted turner turned the switch on channel 17 over on west tree street on all night, there was no tv all night. I know it is hard for people to imagine but before cable had come along and before ted had the idea, television stopped after usually the late movie. And it was off all night until itfluttered on dawn. So the idea of an all news or an all anything channel was like a spaceship from mars. Crazy. Crazy and unimaginable. But the man behind this moonshot, ted turner, people know channel 17 here in atlanta, made him a legendary figure, also owning the Atlanta Braves helped a lot but his early life maybe not so wellknown. He inherited the business of the billboard business from his father. Our drinking, womanizing magnate ted worked for on and off. What were some of the early signs of the unfiltered, persistent, risk loving entrepreneur he became . Size was a good word because he inherited a billboard business and from the beginning he was theatrical. He saw rancher in even a billboard but it wasnt enough for him so as he got first into radio and then into tv he just was a noble bar kind of person. The first thing he did in any measure was still too brave talk at from wsb coming in and over bidding. He didnt have the money really and he certainly didnt have the audience but he stole it from wsb and weve heard from a number of people he would stop on peoples desks and say by ad time from me even though they had no idea who he was or why they should spend money on ad time and he was just a very colorful and no filter person was persistent. The classic business story, entrepreneur story. You take no for an answer and he didnt let anything defeat him, even the fact that nobody was watching his television station that he spends money hedidnt have on. This business he started also started with tragedy. He was left holding the reins of his fathers business after hisfather killed himself. And started buying radio stations and then this first uhf station w dcg channel 17. Give us a sense of how stingy uhf or even cable stations were at that point when he bought it. I dont know whos out there but for people who might remember the time when you had to get up off the couch and turned the dial to tune in the station and maybe after rabbit ears on top of the television to just decisively tune in a station, uhf versus vhf, uhf was the super friends. They called it the lunatic fringe because it was very hard to tune in and even if you had the right devices, even there was very little that was airing on. They had to really scramble for programming so it was a big gamble. It sounds glamorous to buy a television station but that kind of televisionstation was in the netherlands at that time. Men who got into the business and it was mostly men were real risktakers and they were hoping it might get partly into a different sort of tv so for ted to take the chance to go into that business was just wild in and of itself and then to do things like woo away the braves and start putting other sports, sporting events on a channel and crazy things, crazy movies no one else where. Crazycommercials and of course bill touch is legendary for his crazy newscast in the middle of the night. All of that combined to create a television station that people slowly but surely started tuning in even though they always admitted. Tell us a little more, people who dont know and im sure people who knew bill when he was on the air. Explain what was wtc dtv. As part of the licensing to run a television station you needed to show a certain amount of Public Affairs on the air and head was decidedly antinews which is why this story issuch a great story. He wasnt a crusading news fellow at all. He crusaded against the news but he had to put a certain amount on the air and bill was a young radio announcer was kind of basically stumbled into the station area if hes out there, say hello. He stumbled into the station and with all these other young full who were tantalized by the prospect of television he basically was the sort of guy who drew the short straw as the nation station announcer who had to do the rest requisite newscast and it evolved over time into a one requisite newscast was not like any other. Now we have lampooned of the news all the time but he had the crew in the middle of the night or it aired in the middle of the night it a joke newscast because they really didnt want to do a serious one and they had to persuade their boss, the station manager was okay to do this and that would fulfill the fcc requirements for news and itbecame , they did it tongueincheek for themselves but it turned out the station was being fed out around southeast and ultimately around the nation and it drew, became the sort of signature or one of the signatures of the entire station. Along with the georgia championship wrestling. One critic called it a masterpiece ofbad taste. But i do want to get to what you talk about started being broadcast outside of the state there was an fcc rule change in 1972 which meant bill started getting fan mail from people outside of atlanta so the question was why were people watching a georgia station in nebraska . Because they could and again for us now even those of us remember those days its so hard to imagine a time when there was just a few stations and when most of them went off at night if you were left up at night in kansas and there was bill tosh in the middle of the night doing funny things, it seemed like it was live, you kept watching it because you were so thankful there was a late night movie and build to entertain you. So it was a proof of concept without them calling it. Basically, this story is the perfect marriage and i love that its centered and not in a typical Media Capital like los angeles or new york or dc. Ted and this merry band of tv full together with the moment in time that technology allowed were pumping out what they were doing locally, then regionally and then nationally and showing the power of 24 hour news. The power of cable which is a very unsexy thing and troubled right now but then it was like the internet. It was like the tesla of television at that time that allowed td to rev up god help us to new heights. Was also a shot across about the three Major Networks that had been deciding what news was and what programming should be a really long time. It created this kind of wild west. Ted turner those in but as you said it was not a news guy and considered it kind of a downer what was the appeal for him starting and all news 24 hour station . Once he got news upstart called Home Box Office was playing around with cable the same way he was playing around with cable. That is going more regionally and just in the typical area where it was licensed. When he heard about this guy jerry levin and his hbo and how they were going to be met up to a satellite and broadcast around the nation he wanted to do that to and he knew as jerry levin was going to do it with movies and movies were tough because you had to license it and get all the rights. He wanted to do it maybe with sports but he did it with sports it would cannibalize the main ingredients of channel 17 so he thought maybe ill do it with music and someone said thats a dumb idea, no one will ever watch music on television so finally the last grass of what he could do with this technology, it really was a way to use this new technology was news. All news radio and just started bubbling up in some markets. Somebody thought that might be interesting and even though that wasnt his thing was his entrce into using this satellite as a way to spread a station throughout the nation. And also news has no copyright. Its expensive to produce a pound the cheapest way to produce it and thats the next part of the story. Theres a question from gm says i enjoyed this book, since wtc g started doing jokey news late at night to fulfill the requirements for Public Service programming it anyone at the fcc take notice that they were doing comedy events . I never noticed anything that suggested that maybe if somebody out there knows that because there are no records from the station. Everything i found was cobbled together from peoples personal archives but ive never found anything. Part of that is part and parcel of the fact nobody cared. Nobody was paying that close attention. I would say the general manager there, the station manager said by was apparently august and austere grownup on premises and he basically took issue with it and bill said nobody ever said this rule that it has to beserious. So they managed to get away with it. There was not that much oversight of those stations at that moment in time because so many came and went and people went out of business. Ted picked out another one at a fire sale in charlotte because the man who started that could not make and add up so they were just really the lunatic fringe. There was a serious news man involved, hes a journalist thinks that wtcg is everything wrong with Television News and he becomes a major player. You get a vision far beyond what the Big Three Networks are doing so what his is his vision and how did 10 turner do it . He embodied a number of men at the time who were trying to book those networks. For years people have been trying to pierce that network stranglehold on not just the news but on entertainment the problem always was that it was impossible to bust through because they owned literally the airwaves. And so reese had been struggling in various jobs to figure out how to do it as they say as had some other men and basically he had been trying to sell news to ted for wtcg as an independent for years. He had a news service he was involved with and he thought that the one that he started, one previous to the one that he started he was involved with and he wanted ted to get on board because other stations had it and ted kept sayingabsolutely not. I hate the news, ill never do news so what ted did decide to do news thats what he called was reese and reese was as hardcore news as ted was antinews so they made a very unusual that they both had the same goal in mind and that was busting the conventional system of networks. And just commented that ted was known to say he was cable before cable was cool. No one would buy these commercials so he got into this direct mail. Again today we go on the internet and order something in the second it would be at the door in a couple of hours but back then if you could go, if you watch a Television Commercial for product like i ginsu knife and order it and get it delivered that was the thrill and also it was besides convenient it was utilitarian. Those kinds of ads as is able to get that station out more and more and even cnn at the beginning it was able to prove the people who were watching. Orders were coming in from all over the United States and also the caribbean. There was mail coming in that evidence because there was no ratings that there was a hunger to watch this stuff. We will put a coin in the craving because this story comes in a little bit later but his ready to reputation was wellestablished by then and one critic said the idea of him starting a news station was like attila the hun running summer camp for the elderly. There are so many great quotes in this book because such a colorful character. Theres a wonderful scene where rees comes and needs ted at his station. This is a place where snow comes to the roof, a bit of a dive and the talk about what it would take to create a news station. Give us a sense of that conversation. Basically they were at odds because rees couldnt imagine you start a news station and the place like atlanta in the late 1970s. Ted wanted it to be an atlanta. He didnt really understand exactly what he wanted to have on it except that he wanted to have this channel. Reese was very excited about the idea of finding a star and he felt they needed some journalistic credibility because teds reputation was super wild. He was yachtsman of the year, publicly drunk, obloquy crazy, all over the place with women and so the needed somebody sobering, and reese said i think we should try to go after dan rather and it wasnt entirely clear who dan rather was the ted turner. Thats how checked out of the news world he was. That story comes to reason i dont know if it is true but bi believe it in the sense that ted didnt watch the news. It wasnt important to and it would make sense, he certainly wasnt home at 6 30 p. M. When the network news rent because he was too busy working all the time. And sailing. And running around with his lady friend so it wasnt clear he would know who the most famous amusement in america or second after Walter Cronkite would be. Maybe possibly someone they could go after because he another show. Dan rather, cbs had cut back on another shodan rather did some reese was pretty sure if thats enough money they could get in. He was very confident. That was part of the challenge they were in atlanta are away from new york or los angeles, the television capitals that were there at that time. The other challenge is reese had never even produced an hour of Live Television and hes signing up to do this 24 subnetwork 365 days a year so it was a real hostile to find that staff and turn this abandoned country club into an elaborate set. What did you he mean to bring e to amanda cox what kind of challenges . Also to add to your point it still was not entirely clear anybody would watch this, even better newspeople, only some saw that this was an intoxicating proposition. People thought it was outrageously insane in when would watch it. Watching the news was like eating your vegetables. But back to your question, basically ted found as a location or his people found an old that for dead country club, the old Progressive Club that had been sitting there for years. Was maybe going to develop, maybe not. They had retrofit his old club with rats in it pretty quickly in order to have it ready. Satellite dishes had to be installed. They were huge, they were not common. He would have the largest array of satellite dishes ever installed at that point but also beside the equipment and theres a lot of story here about the changing technology, was the human resources. As you say convincing people to move to atlanta for not too much money for something that might network was not a foregone conclusion. So basically reese and his folks, Ted Kavanaugh was one of his chief producers, he may be on the call. They decided what you need to do was get cheap labor, tried and true, go out and find young people who are willing to work for less than minimum wage all for the chance to have this starry eyed moment in television that they couldnt get because there were only three networks and a few hours of news produced everyday so there was no chance for them to get work if they were not the creme de la creme. Thats what they did. Several of the men including Ted Kavanaugh went out and went to Journalism Schools and rally to run people. And meanwhile, hundreds of tapes were streaming in to the makeshift quarters on west peach trees. Because there were not people in there were people in local news dying to be on the air or produce networking news. Again, it were not that many opportunity at the actual networks so there were people who were willing to put their life on hold. The other thing that happens thats also incredibly unusual at the time, people find it fascinating, is that i bring couples was verboten, or keeping couples. If you met your husband or guy at the television station you work at, one of you would have to leave. If reese to get the two for one, a couple maybe one was a camera person and one was an anchorwoman, he went for it. It was cheaper to move them and, of course, they were invested in the place because everybody was marching towards this deadline of june 1, 1980, and pitching in. The check would help and basically making it all up. We do know that the did pass on one upandcoming journalist named oprah winfrey, someone named charlie rose. Although the rebel to this story is remarkable how they got this going in a year. Its a start up before startups actually happened. Like a training camp, pages crackled with excitement, this frat house atmosphere. How fresh were the stories when people told them to you . Some people held back the really fun drugs and sex stories that i still hear about now especially now that the book is actually out because it was a big wild toga party apparently. Everybody who i talked to was so thrilled to be sharing that moment in time because whatever they did with the rest of their lives, whether they stayed in television or screwed out of the business after a year, that all had a memorable, incredible experience because how often do you get to build something completely new . In many ways it ruined a lot of people because after you have that thrill of building something from scratch, Everything Else in the aftermath is going to seem hohum. You are wage into an existing structure. This book was so much fun to write. In part because there was no clearcut obvious source. Cnn didnt help me in any way and even if they had i wouldnt have relied entirely on what they had to say because this is so completely not a corporate book. Its so noncorporate. Its that the message what to get out about a place that it might have failed, and all the people came to did know what the heck was going on. It wasnt a clearcut blueprint toward success. It was really a majestic experiment, and couldve been a tremendous accident. Talking about the book up all night ted turner, cnn, and the birth of 24hour news. A conversation with reportedly Atlanta History Center virtual author talk series. Question from ricky who says the book was wonderful for me attending emery was like having a front row seat to turner and cnn. What, if anything, did make the book that you would like to have included . In other words, what was the tough edit . More of that drugs and sex. A lot of it i couldnt verify and it really wasnt supposed to be completely tawdry. But actually i think i got, was very proud i was able to distill this very concentrated moment in time. I know i left some things out but i cant think of anything major that i felt all, while not, i wish i couldve waged that in the sense of excitement is really what i wanted to convey and it makes me very happy if somebody feels that it wasnt there. I dont know if im feeling your line of questioning by saying one of the biggest things i found stealing i wasnt sure id be able to find was when ted turner went to cuba to visit fidel castro who apparently had been pirating the signal almost a conception of the channel. I was very delighted that ted turners staff and his office made a copy of the video for me because i wanted to see it for archival purposes to understand their interaction. Because of course i was an enormous controversial interaction that the head of a tv network even a new and the most people didnt know would make the trek to cuba, a bowed enemy number one at the time or one of the enemies of the United States. And can you do with fidel castro on his private island. That was a fascinating twist in the book. He was basically a conservative. The fact he even accepted that invitation. Why do you think he did . I think he was dazzled that a world leader was actually watching what he had brought. Its the thrill if you make something, as you know well, that somebody consumes it. It was so uncertain and yet gone through so many obstacles which are detailed in the book that couldve killed seen it before it even started. Even once it started its what we would call a soft launch now because it wasnt guaranteed that is going to keep going. It was only in in a couple of million homes to start. The idea that all of a sudden even this about in the at the United States was issuing an invitation was incredibly flattering an avowed enemy of the United States. Ted felt he was never really taken seriously in part because of his behavior and now the idea that somebody who is enormously serious would be reaching out and wanting to talk was not only lifechanging for them in terms of the course that he said cnn on after that but affirming for him, too. They had to fight at cnn and the early days to even get themselves part of the White House Press pool. Again it seems like such an obvious they now especially since its an issue all the time. But then it was not. It was that easy for anybody on the fringes of those networks to penetrate that very, very inner circle. All of a sudden after that fight, it was basically still fighting it, to have fidel castro safe i would like to meet you, is heady. Thank you. You present this as a very transformational moment in the life of ted turner as well that this television station that was at the time growing in leaps and bounds, fidel castro was pirating basically the signal but there was cnn headline news, cnn two, moving into Global Markets into seen international and he begins to see a something more than just this lark, more than a moneymaker, more than a a risk for something that could change the world. Id do you think that went for ted turner . It went enormously deep and its also important to probably not the most captivating part of the story that while that growth you major was going on, the world was changing simultaneously. Its very hard for us to remember that that was a moment in time when it wasnt just ted who was experimenting. Lots of other people were experimenting. All around the world this technology was revolutionizing everything all sorts of communication. He was able, as he marched on, penetrate more markets, more nations and he got hungry, the fever of that was a thrill for him that he was going to be this person wiring up or using the wires that were wiring of the world to transmit this force for good. That was intoxicating to him as well. Absolutely. How did cnn avoid hiring union broadcast technicians and how important was that to seeing it in the early days . Indoors. It never wouldve worked without it. Thats another reason what atlanta was an incredibly wonderful place and also there were issues in new york and d. C. They got around it by and los angeles by jobbing out to a third party. It was controversial. It was one of the reasons why the White House Press pool didnt want cnn in it because they were using nonunion labor. Yes, there was no way that cnn with the budget that it had could ever have gotten off the ground at that moment in time, yes. Im so glad someone brought this up because about this character. Among the many characters in the early days of seaman [inaudible] hardboiled concealed gun toting newsman. We dont get to see is how long did he sit cnn and what was his biggest impact on the channel . Offtake the second part of the question first. Ted kavanaugh rallied the troops. He literally was a ringleader. I was on a cnn anniversary call, and alumni call in honor of the 40th anniversary which i forgot to mention is part of reason the book came out when it did, because it just happened. And to hear the reverence and adulation for ted all of these years later, 40 years later, was magnificent. I knew the people revered him. I i knew that he was this commanding presence, commanding force, but he basically got everybody motivated at a time when they really were not sure that is going to work. He wasnt even sure it was going to work so it was magnificent a few weeks ago to see people, the respect they gave him and the things they gave him that were delayed. They never had the chance to thank him before. That was a real privilege to witness that there but basically ted went on to start Ted Kavanaugh, with just a cnn two which became known as headlines which was another huge legacy of his for sure. Thats a whole book in itself into the personal asked before what i left out there are many books afterwards from the time that i chose to stop it because there was just the way to write it all the time. People of written wonderful books but cnn two penetration of cnn two and Ted Kavanaugh story about the formation of cnn two are fantastic and after that he went into some special project, special reporting investigative reporting. Ran the uniform while within cnn. He wasnt there terribly a long time given to the places been around 40 years but every Single Person along the way who interacted with them, he is a a memorable person and im honored and privileged to have gotten to know them in the course of writing this book and to tell his story. I think its really important. We know it went on the air june 1, 1980, despite pickups and a lot of old order news organizations, lets say, cheering for its wall. How are they going to find all this news . But it is because cnn had to fill time that a a crew is following president reagan to his speech in a Washington Hotel in march 1981 when he gets shot. Can you set that scene from little and tells why does such a big deal for cnn . That was an amazing day. A year after scene and went on the air. It was still only in several million homes. There still were not that many homes in the nation that could receive it because cable was not come cities were not wired for cable at the time and so that twinned with the animosity of the networks and the jealousy and the disbelief on the part of the networks that anyone would care about news 24 7. Combined to make a perfect storm on march 30, 1981 when the president , resident was shot. The was a crew, theres always a crew, the White House Pool crew was always with the president in this event in case something happened to him. But cnn was not allowed to be part of that pool. They happen to the inside as you said at the speech that he had beginning that was a time filler for cnn which which cnn needed a lot of. Basically its a long story, idq in a book but basically it was a day that put cnn on the map in the minds of the press corps and that helped make them aware of that there was not just just for the news but the dangers that were introduced because of 24 hour news come because of immediacy of news. That would not really seen in measurable form since president kennedy had been shot. I invite anyone who is a student of media history which of course i am in the major way go on youtube and watch water cronkite talk about or any of the other anchors who talk about the shooting and subsequent death of president kennedy. You get a flavor for why 24 hour news is a very dangerous as well as riveting and convening force. That day that president reagan was shot in 1981 really, was peoples worst fears about news and news using reported like a sporting event as it was unfolding and all the attendant issues and inaccuracies that could happen as a result. In the cascading effect of bad news being delivered instantly. We live it all everyday now. We live instantaneously, constantly to our peril and detriment i think, but that was one of the first times that we saw that. You cant fact check in realtime. This whole idea that the news not reporting it in its aftermath anymore but while it is unfolding was one of the things that reese really wanted to do. This is the question i think that readers are left with is, especially during these first decades of cnn, whether it was covering significant things or creating significance by covering them, right . And blamed for creating this breaking news breaking all the time. So is the origin of 24 7 24 7 s something we should celebrate . Well i can tell you personally what i think. I avoided in the book because i felt like it was really important to write this book now and, of course, i didnt know when it was in process that we would be in the situation that we are in right now, of course, but i think its super port for people to have a dialogue. We dont have dialogue anymore. We shout at each other. Thats what i welcome this conversation with you because news is deteriorated and debilitated our society. Im very sad about it. I feel, i am beyond minor player in anything in the media but i am so grateful not to be working in daytoday media right now. I struggle with its impact in normalcy which is what i think i enjoyed writing the history of it because i think its only if we study the history of it, if we shut down the polarization or trace back the polarization that we have in our Society Today to the news business, precnn, because certainly president nixon railed against the press as much as the president today does come in a different way and the press was different but we evincing a societal breakdown because of television since televisions inception. And before that we saw it because of radio inception. My last book was about the creation of fast food and the woman who took that money and gave it all away. I i would say the same thing bak then. I cant solve why we became enamored of eating food at a packages as we ran around but i can explain i would happen and understand it makes me a smarter and more thoughtful, hopefully human and consumer. I say the same thing about news. If you think about its impact and how it broke down and you take it from even just beginning of the book that i have drawn out here, with up all night because those who havent read it it does begin actually in the late 40s within the incident that set the tone for television. If you look at the arc of the last 40, 50, 60 years you really get a hardcore sense of how society in media have broken down. Yeah, thats a longwinded way of saying also unite. Thats part of what happened in that story that you write about and people who buy the book, its just a terrific way to frame the book, the sort of what is going on in the 40s when people couldnt keep their eyes off the story there was a human interest, and now cant keep their eye off of the latest political spat being chewed over and over and over. Im going to tie a couple questions from the audience here in that. Whether or not he had watched the channel. He is pretty hyperactive guy but also one of his prizes in the is learning that ted was essentially conservative. And how over time it morphed into this institution reviled by political conservatives like ted turner i was in the 70s and 80s. It so interesting because it takes somebody of a certain age, which i happen to be, to remember that politics did not used to enter into a television channel. You would never have produced the news come as a present nixon felt the news was too liberal back in the late 60s and early 70s. However, it was not the world that we live in today and he was absolutely not teds intent. I point out he was conservative at the time he started cnn because i want people to see that it was not about politics. He didnt start this with some mission that he needed to have a political agenda put forth. In fact, rees wouldnt have allowed if he had. He was afraid when you joined him that maybe there was some undercurrent of that. He quickly realized that wasnt the case. What its become today and as i frequently say, in 1996 when x started, thats when cnn had to shuffle and respond to competition. Until that competition, the issues that were raised were basically those of accuracy and what is news. Raise the question what is news . Is little girl in a well news . Is a explosion and aftermath news . What is news . But once fox come along and at its very decided. Of you, that forced seeking in to scramble and, of course, thats a whole of the book in and of itself that im sure has been written. Im not going to read it but we have lifted. We have lived it. Thats what caused this polarization and Political Force that these channels have become. Ted turner was used one around the student in his bathrobe in the middle of the night hitting on women, saying outrages often racist things. He would so be canceled today. This is very much, this book s very much about a time capsule and the time when things were quite different for many, many reasons. But also im wondering about the people you spoke to what they think, what ted turner thinks of what happened to cnn. What people who were there during those early days how they feel about what happened to this very idealistic prospect that they before . I cant speak for all the people. There were 300 people who were there at the beginning but buti will say i have noticed in chatter, places of social media and to talk with people that theres a sense of distress about what news of a cable news has become. That was just an unthinkable concept back then that you introduce come you might have a commentator on but you would never have what we have today which was a decided point of you from seeing it or from fox and from msnbc . I think the people are sad and perhaps disillusioned about whats become of it, for sure, absolutely. I know i am. I find it unwatchable. But i think everybody is proud to have contributed, again, nt to speak for everyone, but i think the people are proud they were there at the creation of the should be. It was an exciting time. Its like fashion i was going to say henry ford and the car but henry ford turns out to be a very polarizing force as well, make any invention can any creation. I used to cover the internet. I covered the internet in the very beginning of the web and that was an exciting and thrilling time or would always asking the questions of its impact and societal changes that were sprung forth because of it. I dont mean to sound so nambypamby about it and because i think its important to talk about how the cell phone changed our lives, how the computer changed our lives and make them better and richer and also distracted us, fractured us. I dont know if im answering your question that we. Which is second its its a discussion. There is no pat answer for Something Like that. It is the toothpaste is out of the tube and it is involved in that it is evolved. Lets go out on a sort of bright and triumphant note and talk, because weber, i never really addressed here, ted turner the sailor. They yachtsman, the winner of the americas cup. I i know that was part of the revelation for your writing this book was seeing who he was and in that part of his life as somebody who really good run things in a really determined way. Every single day that i was writing this book and even now when you just said that i get chills thinking about it. Yes, he was, he would have been run out of town today, as many men would have been from that era, just fair to point out that it was completely different one. But when you think about the way that ted turner lived his life, he lived it so large. We should all have a fraction of the gumption and excitement and thrill that he had in his life, and to watch those old sailing films, if you can see any of them, they are a complete and total thrill to see him young and handsome without a showdown with all these other handsome men on the side of fabulous engineering creation in the water working so hard together. Its so exciting to see. And they do see him at the baseball game a few days later screening his lungs out, chewing tobacco, running bases around the field. Its just, he lived a life to the absolute fullest and that was way before jane fonda came along. Long before jane fonda was not a gleam in his eye. That may just seize the moment and just he was born into me and he took the means and grew it, but it was such a privilege to read and understand him again a very complex character, but as i get older myself i look for people i want to look at and say, i hope in his fractured state right now that he knows that he lived his life in such a grand and he lived it, he lived it. Thats what we can also. Did you speak with them for the book . I know his dementia is progress. I didnt. I didnt even try frankly. Theres a much that he said, that he wrote, that was written about him, speeches that he gave in knowing that hes in the state that hes in, it just seems almost pointless and cruel, and in biography what youre doing is tied to go back to a moment in time. So no, no, i i wish i could hae known him when he was younger. Were a couple minutes over such as have ask you, i know theres a movie deal in the works. That kind of thing could go on forever and its not in your control but do you have any inkling it would play ted . It so funny. I am such a popculture danse that i have got a clue but the people did buy the right had mention that it was too bad that George Clooney was a little bit younger because he wouldve been a perfect perfect ted turner. But i am so bad. I welcome everyones suggestions, not that i anything to do with it but it would be so much fun, and he would play Ted Kavanaugh and bill . Thats as important to me. I hope it gets i want to say vertically what i didnt set the beginning. I did get signed bookplates to a cappella something of a im happy to get one too thin. Such a great book. So much fun reading it. Lisa, thank you. What a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Theres a lot of unbelievable stories we did not get it. You can buy the book up all night. It really is one for the ages. On Second Thought it would be broadcasting excerpts from this interview this coming friday at 11 a. M. You can stream it, and for the virtual author talk on wednesday jessica hammer will be anything heather about on thursday, in conversations about writing the south which would be great and ill be back on tuesday july 21 to talk about life in the transitions with bruce. Its a great book. He collected stories of people been through wrenching life changes come so very timely book in its own way. Theres a full schedule at Atlanta History Center. Com. Thank you all for joining us. I try to get as many questions as they could. Really appreciate it and goodbye, lisa. Thank you so much. Now want cspan2s booktv more television for serious readers