this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
215 points (97.4% liked)

News

37527 readers
1340 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] cmbabul@slrpnk.net 75 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

Being from the Atlanta area makes my opinion of Ted really complicated, obviously he was a billionaire which is inherently unethical, but he also really helped put Atlanta on the map in the 90s. TBS, the Braves, Captain Planet, TNT, the Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim were all things that directly brought my childhood joy and can trace their origins back to Ted Turner. His contributions to the repopulation of American bison shouldn't be ignored either.

There are no ethical billionaires but I have a difficult time looking at Turner in the same way I do Zuck, Musk, Gates, etc.

Edit: Jesus I forgot WCW, he surely was a man with faults but Ted was the antithesis of Vince McMahon for a period of time. And standing afainst Vince is almost always the morally correct position

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 37 points 4 days ago (2 children)

There are no ethical billionaires but I have a difficult time looking at Turner in the same way I do Zuck, Musk, Gates, etc.

It's funny how people have this intense desire to pigeon hole people into "good" and "bad" categories. To the point where you feel the need to apologize for pointing out good things he's done, because you know people will jump on you for it if you don't.

To be fair, I do think disgust or strong dislike is an eminently reasonable baseline to have when the subject is “billionaires”. Exceptions should only be made on a case-by-case basis.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 days ago

Extreme concentration of wealth is a social problem. It creates opportunities for great harm and few opportunities for anything good to come of it.

[–] DiarrheaSommelier@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

While it's true that there are degrees of awfulness amongst the billionaires, there is no philanthropy sufficient to redeem the extraction and abuse necessary to become one of them. Some are worse, but none are better.

[–] cmbabul@slrpnk.net 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yeah I agree and wasn't trying to make the guy a saint or anything, just trying to add some nuance to the discussion from the impact he had on my life specifically. Although that said, I would probably put Ted on the 'less evil' end of the bell curve of billionaires.

[–] JustAnotherPodunk@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Dude your good. People are complicated. Legacies are messy. There's nuance. Its easy to make a blanket statement that "all billionaires are evil"

Its more difficult to reflect and analyze a person or situation and think for yourself and find good, or bad, in something. Don't apologize and don't let Lemmy's hard line lazy ass one liners make you second guess that.

If a time travelers footsteps on a butterfly in the Jurassic can change the sentient race in the future, I figure that a billionaire absent mindedly funding a water well can accidentally bring the next utopia. I'm not holding my breath, but good things tend to ripple outwards.

[–] DiarrheaSommelier@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago

For sure, I don't disagree with any of what you said.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Him being responsible for the 24h news cycle negates any good he might have done.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Him being responsible for the 24h news cycle negates any good he might have done.

The 24 hour news cycle already existed on radio before Turner put it on TV. Hearing it on radio was his inspiration for putting it on TV.

The 24 hour news cycle was more or less inevitable as TV and radio became ubiquitous. I'm honestly surprised it didn't happen back in the 50s and 60s if I'm being honest. Not to absolve Turner of any wrong doing but it was the inevitable end result of how our tech and society progressed.