Citizen Turner: The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon

The unvarnished tale of a uniquely American rags-to-riches tycoon is based on more than one hundred interviews and reveals the numerous aspects of Ted Turner's success, including media genius, team owner, and driven son of a father who committed suicide. 15,000 first printing. Tour.

Books about today's media moguls, such as Rupert Murdoch, Sir James Goldsmith, and Ted Turner, usually make an obligatory nod--as do the Goldbergs here through Orson Welles--to William Randolph Hearst, the quintessential press baron. And the comparisons are usually apt. In this case, Turner, like his turn-of-the-century predecessor, has led a colorful life, accumulated great wealth, built a global communications empire, and wielded great power. Turner has already been profiled in at least four books, most recently by Porter Bibb in It Ain't As Easy As it Looks (1993). Now, armed with the results of more than 200 interviews, the Goldbergs, father-and-son writers who earlier looked at the way television covers the news with Anchors: Brokaw, Jennings, Rather and the Evening News (1990), offer this exhaustively researched, quite personal look at the man who created CNN, the network that revolutionized worldwide news coverage and that sometimes is itself responsible for influencing that news. Because Turner is often making news himself and creating controversy, there will always be an interest in his activities and plans and in the latest book about him. David Rouse