Bob Losure

Featured Keynote Programs

In his dynamic keynote speech, former CNN anchor Bob Losure examines the recent terrorist attacks abroad including the Charlie Hebdo office massacre in Paris, and the growing number of airline bomb threats here in America. Are radical Islamists forcing the national media including CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times to re-think how far they want to go in covering Islamist terrorist actions? Is there a real fear the networks' own staffs will be attacked for standing up for freedom of the press? Bob probes those questions.

With terrorism literally a global, as well as national issue in 2015, Bob examines how all the news networks including the BBC and Al Jazeera are expanding their international presence with more freelance reporters, producers and photographers strategically placed to cover potential wars in Yemen, The Ukraine, and Nigeria, as well as the continuing ground wars by ISIS and Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a journalist for over 30 years, Mr. Losure also speaks on the political bias of the all-news networks including CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, who are pushing conservative or liberal agendas that abandon long-held journalistic traditions and leave little room for “moderate” points-of-view for their audiences. Bob looks at why TV networks are increasingly focused on terrorism, torture, and rioting at the expense of all other stories, and with a significant bias toward stories that are New York or Washington D.C.-centric.

As the battle continues for TV news ratings dominance, Bob gives some steps for us to get relatively unbiased immediate news even before it airs on U.S. Television networks. Instead of relying on one or two networks for so-called “breaking news” that leaves us with a feeling of depression, fear, and hopelessness about the world around us, we can now pick out stories from the internet that give us the in-depth coverage we're looking for.

Bob well remembers his first few weeks at CNN Headline News in Atlanta in 1986, anchoring the live coverage of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster that put CNN on the map to stay.
In his speech, he lets his audience in on what it's like to do a one-hour interview with the legendary CBS newsman Walter Cronkite, and he speaks of his friendship with three-time cancer survivor and CNN anchor colleague Don Harrison, who saved CNN Headline News from mistakenly proclaiming that President George Herbert Walker Bush had died unexpectedly at the dinner table in Tokyo in 1990.

Bob recounts his “live” reporting from San Francisco's Marina District during the Loma Prieta earthquake, his reporting from atop the CNN Center in Atlanta on Nelson Mandela's U.S. visit, and Hurricane Hugo's devastation in South Carolina.

He talks about the life lessons he learned from Ted Turner, who's own courage in the face of financial disaster in the 1990s gave Bob some valuable lessons into never giving up, and striving daily to conquer fear, risk, adversity and change in our journey through life.

Chuck Roberts - - Great anchor, friend, and unfortunately for him – he looked a lot like me. - Back in the mid 1990's I went to a wedding of two friends of mine. At the reception, I congratulated the bride and groom and moved down the reception line. I knew no one in the wedding party.
First person: “You're Chuck Roberts. Honey, it's the famous anchorman”....is only the beginning.
“My mother knew your mother in Kansas City. What was your mother's name?
Husband: “Chuck, was your dad an architect or a plumber? You look different than the Chuck Roberts I know on TV.”
To the Next guy said, “Hi, I'm Larry King.”
“No you're not. You're Chuck Roberts.”
Final guy: “You know, you look a lot like Bob Losure?”
“I get that a lot. Bob's a nice guy. But, no, I'm Chuck Roberts.

KOTV Audition – (No one would hire me. Then they got a new news director--Jack Bowen from OKC.. I audition and he falls asleep, then quits the job. GM Duane Harm—Did he hire you?...”)

To overcome adversity, sometimes you have to be relentless. If you fail, you lick your wounds and use your mistakes as a launching pad for success.

I'm indebted to 3 experts for their advice--knowledgeable speakers on overcoming adversity and dealing with “change.” They counsel Fortune 500 companies, and all are successful.

(Colonel Lee Ellis spent 5 years in a North Vietnamese prison camp known as the Hanoi Hilton after his plane was shot down in 1967. Senator John McCain was also held there. They were brutally tortured, forced to endure starvation conditions, and lived among rats.)

(Pat Williams, Senior V.P. Of the Orlando Magic of the NBA. And since 1968, he's been a General Manager for the Philadelphia 76ers, Chicago Bulls, Atlanta Hawks, and for many years now, Senior Vice-President of the Orlando Magic. He's the man who drafted Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley, and many others. Nineteen of his former players have become NBA coaches. He's written 75 books)

Jim Stovall , an author many times over, is legendary. And he's my neighbor in Tulsa. He's produced a series of movies including The Ultimate Gift and the Ultimate Life, with stars including James Garner and Peter Fonda. He listens to the narration of 300 books a year. He's been blind since his teenage years when he was on the cusp of going for a weightlifting title in the Olympics. His Narrative Television Network, headquartered in Tulsa, helps 13 million blind Americans by describing each scene as the dialogue rolls on in every episode of TV series including Law and Order.)
I'm going to give you a roadmap to overcoming adversity, which involves courage, motivation, facing risk and fear, and dealing with change.

4th Grade Teacher, John Kennedy – It was a history class. One day he said he was giving us a pop quiz. We all moaned. Then he gave us some sage advice: “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it's time you knew that life is not fair. Life is grand, it's wonderful, but it's not fair. You won't always get what you need. You won't always get what you deserve. If you think you've already conquered your biggest adversity, another, bigger one will come up...” I went home from school somewhat depressed. And I didn't believe him. Many years later, in 2006 I called John Kennedy and said I wanted to come over. He was 90 by that time. I went to his house in my hometown of Tulsa and told him, “John, you were right; it's one thing after another.”

He nodded and smiled: “Bob, judging from your broadcast career, you took my advice to heart. Now, get ready for the next obstacle. It's just around the corner.” We both had a good laugh.

April 1985 – KOTV - I discover I have testicular cancer. I learned that no matter how valuable you think you are, you are replaceable. While I was hospitalized, KOTV made their move and replaced me. From my adversity came two things – I lived. That's always good! And it forced me to look for a better job and get it. For probably the first time in my life, I needed help to overcome adversity. The nurses at St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa brought me back up from the depths of despair. Their caring attitude along with a chemotherapy regimen got me through the nauseau, the times I blacked out while trying to get to the bathroom, and the crying binges that seemed to overtake all sense of reason. I knew I could survive, but I needed help...and nurses and staff were there to make sure I got it. I'm forever thankful to them. But I had to find a job.

I knew I had the skills to anchor and report at CNN. I had a broadcast agent in New York and he found an audition for me at CNN Headline News. I flew to Atlanta, and tried to keep every hair in place because the chemo was makng my hair fall out in clumps. The news director, Paul Amos, could have hired any of a hundred other people with similar qualifications.
Only later did I learn that his mother had died of cancer...so he saw that I needed this job. He liked my style, I had to take a risk, and deal with change. As Pat Williams puts it, “For some people, the fear of change entails a fear of failure. I am amazed at the number of people who express anxiety at the prospect of achieving success. People have an endless capacity for dreaming up new fears. 'I may have to give up some privacy. I may have to give up the simplicity of my life. Success is going to complicate my life.' “Risk, fear, and change can kill our dreams—but only if we surrender to them. And the good news is that we don't have to surrender.”

For a newsman, it was where you wanted to be. I was anchoring the morning the Shuttle Challenger exploded...and the night the U.S. Airstrikes on Baghdad began in the first Persian Gulf War. I was reporting on the streets as well, “live” on top of the CNN Center as Nelson Mandela spoke in Atlanta. Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the site of the 1989 World Series, had hardly stopped shaking from the Loma Prieta earthquake, and I ws being called on to get to the Bay Area and report on it. I had conquered those dream killers – Risk, Fear, and Change.

Jim Stovall says for change to occur, companies have to learn to work smarter, not harder. Jim has done amazing things with some Fortune 500 companies. He gives each member of the sales staff a discount store stopwatch and tells them to keep it on them during the workday. When they're talking to a prospect about their company's products or services, they click it on. Then click it off when the presentation is done.
Jim says, “I told them that once they reached 15 hours of productive work time in the week, as indicated by their stopwatch, they were done until next week. What the average salesperson in that organization didn't realize was they had actually only been working around five hours a week, wasting forty hours telling stories to each other, and other non-productive activity.”
Jim continued: “The top third of the sales force was only coming into the office a few hours each day. They were efficiently and productively establishing new customers, and then spending time with their families or improving their golf game. Since their sales numbers were astounding to management, no one cared how many or how few hours they spent in the office. Your professional workday is about creating productivity, not just generating activity designed to convince someone that you're working.”

You know from your experience that success doesn't come without preparation. Like a football game, other companies are working hard to take part of your share. The Miami Dolphins drafted Bob Griese as quarterback in 1966, and in 1970 hired Don Shula, a hard-nosed no-nonsense guy as head coach. They did scrimmages, and murderous drills called “gassers.” Shula divided the team into two squads, and each of them sprinted flat-out, sideline to sideline and back again, then rested 30 seconds, and ran it again, rested 30, and ran it a third time. Shula was right there alongside them, running the gassers with his players. He knew that discipline was the key, and he had to do everything he told them to do. They went from 3-10 in 1969 to 10-4 in 1970. By 1971 they tied a game in regulation and went into two sudden-death overtimes. Griese said he was thinking “Hey these guys are getting tired, and we've still got plenty of steam.” With their superior conditioning and self-discipline, they won. Then they went unbeaten in 1972. The moral of the story is that self-discipline can make you unbeatable.

With time management comes Fear Management. There was nothing more fearful in 2001 than the horror and aftermath of the World Trade Center catastrophe. In the aftermath, then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani saw chalk-white dazed people moving through a gray haze near the World Trade Center towers, like ghosts in a fog. Giuliani and his team worked courageously restablishing communication and displaying a calm demeanor to a shaken population. His steady presence helped prevent panic.
Interviewers have asked Giuliani if 9/11 changed him.

He reveals his bout with prostate cancer the previous year changed him much more. The cancer, he said “gave me more wisdom about the importance of life, the lack of control you have over death. It removed some of the fear of death.” Giuliani said the most important lessons he learned about 9/11 were about courage: “Courage is managing fear to accomplish what you want to accomplish. And it's a great demonstration of love. It's finding areas in which other people are more important than you. My dad taught me that in a time of emergency, you've got to become deliberately calm.

My dad said, “The more that people are yelling and screaming around you, the calmer you should become. Somebody's got to be able to figure a way out of the jam. And you'll be able to do that.”

Giuliani continued: “I always saw my dad as being very courageous. I can remember one of the last things he told me, when he was in a hospital bed, dying. I asked him, “Were you ever afraid.” He said, “Sure, there were times when I was afraid. But it isn't about being afraid. It's about overcoming it.”

Pat Williams suggests there will always be critics and opponents who will tell you that you're doing the wrong thing, doing it the wrong way. Don't let the critics get you down. Ask yourself: “If the critics know so much, why haven't they achieved something great?” I've seen statues of presidents, inventors, scientists—but I've never seen a statue of a naysayer. I've never heard anyone give a speech praising a naysayer, proclaiming, “Of all the people who said it couldn't be done, he was the greatest doom-and-gloomer of them all. Stop listening to the negativity. Smile politely—and a smile can do so much—thank them for their opinion, and then go about the business of building your dreams.”

Change and Adversity are the only things certain in life.

To Pat Williams, Courage is an absolute necessity if we're to overcome adversity and achieve our dreams. He says, “We all need courage to take risks, to embrace change, to let go of all that is comfortable and familiar, to stand along in the arena, to express our convictions.

We need courage to accept criticism and condemnation, knowing that whenever we stake out a bold position, someone will disagree. We need the courage to do what is right, and let the chips fall where they may. And when we're wrong, we need the courage to admit it and take our lumps.

When we make mistakes, we need the courage to learn the lessons of those mistakes. We need the courage to set an example to the people around us who look to us for reassurance. We need the courage to speak with bold optimism, even if we're quaking inside.”

Colonel Ellis puts it this way: “Character is perfected in hardship; talents are refined in the crucicle of trials. Like it or not, we tend to learn the most about ourselves in our struggles. Such self-awareness is the prerequisite for all personal development.”

Anchor Don Harrison -1990–(Pres. Bush and Barbara in Japan.) George passes out at dinner.

CNN should have celebrated Don's heroics to save not himself, but the network from a terrible embarrassment. Unfortunately, celebrations in corporate America don't come along very often, even after disaster is averted.

And that's a shame, according to Colonel Ellis, who says “We need to celebrate our successes. Celebrations validate our deep human need for confirmation and affirmation of accomplishments. People who feel valued tend to be more energetic, enthusiastic, proud, and confident. These emotions produce the kind of positive energy that drives results. Our celebrations in the POW camps had to be simple and subdued, but they were powerful boosts to our morale, our teamwork, and our ongoing ability to achieve the mission. Too often people celebrate only the big successes and victories, and they forget that celebrating the day-to-day battles in work and life are important too. Some of the most successful companies,which are also many times the best places to work, have regular celebrations instead of waiting for some “big event”.

And we know that Time takes its toll on us. There's the joke about A group of 15 year old boys discussing where they should meet for dinner. They agree to meet at the McDonald's next to Captain Jack's Seafood Grille because they only have six bucks among them, and Jennie Webster, that cute girl in Social Studies, lives on the same street, and they might see her.
 
Ten years later, the same group of now 25 year old guys agree they'll meet at Captain Jack's Seafood Grille because the beer is cheap, the bar has free snacks, the house band is good, there's no cover charge and some cute girls go in there.

Twenty years later, at 45, the group agrees to meet at Captain Jack's Seafood Grille because the martinis are big and the waitresses wear tight outfits.

Twenty years later, now 65, the group once again agrees they'll meet for dinner at Captain Jack's Seafood Grille because it's handicapped accessible, the food is not too spicy, and they have an “early bird special.”

20 years later, at 85 years of age, the group agrees they'll meet for dinner at Captain Jack's.......because they've never been there before.

Yes, time is marching on. If I had not conquered my fear to go from Radio to TV reporting and anchoring...who knows. Then if I hadn't developed cancer, I wouldn't have had the guts to audition for CNN. If I hadn't finally tired of working double shifts anchoring on overnights at CNN, I wouldn't have conquered my fear of public speaking and started doing keynotes around the country. And I wouldn't be here with you tonight.

You know what really matters? Today. Yesterday is a canceled check, and tomorrow is little more than a promissory note. Today is cash, and you have to spend it wisely.

It's just about impossible to turn on your TV without being confronted by some supposed expert telling you how to be successful in your personal or professional life. I'm a big proponent of getting advice on success from truly successful people. And while you're getting that advice, you should also get some good advice on failure. In every situation, learning why people have failed can be as instructive as advice on success.

And if you can, get your advice “first hand!” Remember the game you played in school, where everyone sat in a circle and a short message is whispered into the ear of the first person, then on around the circle?” The simple message “We rode in my father's Buick to visit my grandmother on summer vacation, and she took us to the zoo,” after it's been passed down a ways can turn into “My grandmother lives at the zoo, and my father drives for Buick on the NASCAR circuit!”

I hope you take some time this week for some quiet time at home without distractions or interruption. Do you tend to be controlled by fear and anxiety?
Clear your mind of the clutter and map out your course.

And remember, no one has ever succeeded by themselves. If someone tells you they've never failed at anything, you can confidently assume that they've failed to recognize the big contribution of others to their lives.

Let's say you meant to cook dinner but you didn't. Then you'll be hungry. If you intended to light the fire in the fireplace, but failed to act, you'll be cold. And if you don't implement your mission to overcome adversity on a daily basis, you will fail.

Paul Harvey – So God Made a Farmer
I want to close with an excerpt from a speech that the legendary radio commentator Paul Harvey made at the Future Farmers of America National Convention in Chicago in 1978. Harvey began in Tulsa radio, and had a 65-year career in broadcasting nationwide from Chicago. He died in 2009.

My dad was a farmer in his early days in Indiana; his dad, for whom I'm named, ws a farmer there in the late 1800's, and my great-grandfather farmed from 1850-1900 in Van Buren. I think back on my memories of my aunt's farm in Indiana, and the hard work she and her son put in from dawn to dusk.
I've got to admit I don't know hard physical labor. They did.

At the 2013 SuperBowl, Dodge Ram had a 2-minute commercial of a small portion of Paul Harvey's speech that was simple, direct, and pulled at the heart strings of everyone who has faced adversity. The commercial, with photos of farmers in the field and with no sales pitch except for an image of a Ram Truck at the very end, was acknowledged as the most dramatic of all the commercials that aired during the SuperBowl.

Dodge Ram agreed to donate to the Future Farmers of America Foundation 100 thousand dollars for every one million views of the commercial on YouTube up to a total of one million dollars. The goal was reached in less than five days.
I'd like to close with a few paragraphs of Paul Harvey's speech:

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker."
So God made a farmer.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it."
So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.'
I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours."
So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It has to be somebody who'll plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.
Somebody who'll bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who'll laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'"
So God made a farmer.
Thank you ....

Former CNN Anchor Bob Losure is more than a cancer survivor in many ways. Today he is a disciple for spreading the word that cancer CAN be beaten. Faced with the harsh reality of rapidly-growing testicular cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes, he endured three operations, three rounds of chemotherapy, and the loss of his anchor job at the CBS affiliate in Tulsa to reach for a new beginning that he had only dreamed of. As his hair was falling out from the chemo, Bob flew to Atlanta to audition at CNN. Miraculously, he not only got the anchor job, but even more importantly, he learned how precious life is. Speaking across America, he recounts how faith and the encouragement of hospital caregivers as well as many people he never even had the chance to meet in person put him back on the road to living out his dreams and encouraging others that the fight against cancer is getting stronger every day.

Mr. Losure holds nothing back as he lays out his life-and-death struggle in keynotes to over 90 groups and medical centers, including the American Cancer Society in St. Louis, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Duke University Medical Center. Bob lets his audiences into his deepest thoughts as he lay in a hospital bed as large bags of chemotherapy drugs dripped into his body for days on end. He tells the courageous story of fellow CNN anchor Don Harrison, who battled cancer three times, even losing a leg at age 13. It was Harrison who saved the network from what would have been a disaster of monumental proportions
when he refused to read on-the-air what turned out to be an erroneous story that President George H.W. Bush had died beneath a dinner table in Tokyo. For Don Harrison that day, his stalling in the face of orders to read the story saved the network from what would have been a major mistake.

I remember the first time I flew to Atlanta to visit CNN while still a testicular cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy in my hometown of Tulsa. I was auditioning at CNN Headline News, watching my hair fall out and struggling to keep the remaining strands in place during...yes, DURING three rounds of chemotherapy, and hoping that CNN would like my perseverance in facing my physical challenges and let me work for them. I believed strongly that I would live...and apparently that belief may have rubbed off on them. It must have. They hired me. Then, just three weeks after I joined CNN, I was in the anchor chair covering the liftoff of the Space Shuttle Challenger when it exploded 90 seconds after take of, leaving all of us in the newsroom, and millions in the TV audience watching aghast. And that's one of many stories I want to tell you in person.

I've been fortunate to run across a number of wonderful people in this world. A few years ago I did a one-hour interview with CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite. Then there's a good friend of mine and three-time cancer survivor, former CNN Headline News anchor Don Harrison. Don saved the reputation of CNN Headline News by refusing to read an unverified report on-the-air that President George H. W. Bush had died unexpectedly at the dinner table in Tokyo in 1990. Fortunately, though sick, the President was very much alive. And so was Don's career.

I've been speaking all over this country for over 20 years, and the speech I give today as a former anchor during the early days of CNN is far different than the one I gave the first time in 1992. I want you to conquer those dream killers--Fear, Risk, Adversity, and Change, in the workplace and in life. But the road you take to do that could be far different than mine. And if you look inside yourself, you'll see qualities that you may not have known were there. Qualities that matter: Honesty. Integrity. Belief in Yourself. And Conquering Fear no matter how large the shadow looms over you.

Actor and Director Woody Allen has given us some great quotes: "I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens." Yes, we can laugh, but the reality is that the fear of losing our lives is a big one. There was nothing more tragic in America than the horror and aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy. Then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani walked through a haze of smoke and ash and crowds of desperate New Yorkers, and later revealed that his bout with prostate cancer the previous year changed him much more than 9-11. He said the cancer showed him the lack of control we have over death and removed some of the fear of death. In place of fear, he found courage. It was his father who told him years before that "you must manage fear to accomplish what you want to accomplish. It's finding areas in times of emergency where you've got to become deliberately calm even as everyone is yelling and screaming around you. Somebody's got to be able to figure a way out of the jam. And you'll be able to do that."

Giuliani remembered that as his dad was dying in a hospital bed, he asked him, "Were you ever afraid?" His dad responded, "Sure, there were times when I was afraid. But it isn't about being afraid, it's about overcoming it."

And Fear goes hand-in-hand with Risk, Adversity and Change. If we don't take risks, at least those with even a small chance of succeeding, we'll never be able to face Adversity or Change. Risk had come to my boss, Ted Turner, before, He took all the money from his sign company and bought large satellite dishes and cheap TV
programming in 1975 to start TBS just as the country was undergoing a massive expansion in underground cable lines and satellite technology. Five years later he put CNN on the air when very few people thought there was enough news to fill 24 hours. He took the risks, and succeeded wildly. In a way, he also won against those dream killers of Adversity and Change in one fell swoop. I was there at CNN to see those changes, thanks to overcoming adversity with testicular cancer, and being forced to overcome Fear, Risk, Adversity, and Change all at once. And that's what I want to be my gift to you. If one door closes, I would suggest kicking down the next one. And if that doesn't work, kick down the next one. What a life awaits all of us if we dust ourselves off...and as Frank Sinatra put it, "Get Back In The Race!". I might have been able to work if I had settled on ending my TV broadcast career, but I knew there was so much more I could do if I was up for competing with the best, and faced Adversity by refusing to cower,to feel sorry for myself, and simply give up my dream.

I've spoken or emceed before over 200 conventions, from New York to San Francisco to Seoul, South Korea, and just as importantly Rock Hill, North Carolina, and Binghamton, New York. And every one of them have been a chance for me to grow...and hopefully for you, as well. I look forward to meeting you in person in the near future.

...And Can I Please have it back?
Former CNN Headline News Anchor Bob Losure pulls no punches on how CNN has thrown out traditional journalism in the wake of the Trump Presidency, becoming a shill for the far left and also left its mantra of trust and fairness in shambles.

As Bob puts it, "Both CNN, and the sister network I anchored for in Atlanta for nearly 12 years, CNN Headline News (now HLN), have thrown out journalistic standards when it comes to political coverage, spinning almost every story, and in some cases, mangling the truth, by attacking anything Trump, anything Republican or conservative--distorting and trivializing in a way that embarrasses those of us who toiled for decades to earn the respect."

Mr. Losure, who spent 30 years anchoring and reporting in local news in Oklahoma, and has keynoted nationwide for 25 years, frequently gets introduced as a former member of “The Clinton News Network”, and and eventually gets peppered with questions from the audience on why CNN is so liberal, how did former CNN President Tom Johnson enjoyed his nights sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom in the White House courtesy of Bill Clinton?, and whether Bob sympathized with the point of view of CNN political reporters like Christiane Amanpour. After speaking, on more than one occasion, his ride back to the airport never materialized. He got the hint. The respect was gone. Pick your side—Fox News, The New York Times, Washington Post on the right. MSNBC and your beleaguered CNN on the left. But above all, don’t pick the moderate side...because no one will want to hear you.

In his speech, Bob points to the years 1994-1996 turning points in journalism. A liberal L.A. Times Executive Editor, Tom Johnson, was hired by Ted Turner as CNN President. Johnson began a move to trim CNN’s full-time bureaus in places like Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, even Atlanta and other cities, bringing more and more of its staff from Atlanta to New York, and slowly adding more liberal talk and less straight news pieces when it came to politics. And with Hillary Clinton’s loss, it’s an all-out war by the national press with the goal, to impeach Donald Trump.

Since 1995-96, With MSNBC on the far left, and Fox News on the far right, politics has reigned over 80 percent of the news/talk time. Much of the news in middle-America and the west is ignored. When Ted Turner sold CNN to Time-Warner to become its Vice-Chairman, little did he know that he would be pushed aside and lose six billion –yes “billion” dollars and so much of what he had worked so hard to build.

Twenty-five years ago Bob looked forward to sitting in the anchor chair at Headline News, and it didn’t hurt that it was the only national news game in town at the time. But “HLN” now concentrates on a steady diet of “Forensic Files” at night, and is a mix of Hollywood gossip, and how to shop for the latest fashions in the day. Bob knows that the so-called “news wheel” of news developments, business updates, weather nationwide, sports, and human interest stories—and not just one-sided political discussion—could work today, though the audience is older and the pie has been carved up in so many pieces.

Bob knows the younger audience today, those under 35, are headed to their I-Pads and Tablets to to seek out the headlines that are important to them, and they don’t care whether the viewing screen is 5 inches or five feet—they just won’t wait around for the linear TV news of today, where you watch many of the same news talk shows replaying every three hours on their schedule. Maybe Ted Turner, still with a two-billion-dollar fortune of land holdings and “Ted’s Montana Steakhouses”, knows something we don’t know. He says, tongue-in-cheek, that he’s keeping an eye out from his third-floor office three blocks from the CNN Center in Atlanta, watching and waiting for CNN to raise the white flag and and plead with him to come back and save them.