Ted Turner, who died on Wednesday aged 87, was many things – a philanthropist, a conservationist, the one-time husband of movie star Jane Fonda, a yachtsman and the owner of the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks.

He thought big and lived large.

The phrase “make no small plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood” is attributed to the architect Daniel Burnham but it might as well have been tattooed on Turner’s soul.

But, with all his accomplishments, surely his most notable legacy will be the way he changed the news media forever by founding CNN in 1980.

He himself called it the greatest achievement of his life, according to CNN’s obituary. The 24-hour news network brought the world into people’s living rooms, and eventually prompted imitators, from Fox News to MSNBC and beyond.

The cable news network he founded has been far from perfect, too often descending into chattering panels of experts and contentious arguments designed to fill the relentless all-day/all-night news cycle. But it has been overall a serious news provider with a global staff of principled and talented journalists.

“He was the original,” the iconic CNN........

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