Graham wanted to buy CNN

CNN founding President Reese Schonfeld has revealed that the late Washington Post Chairman Katherine Graham once considered buying Turner Broadcasting and had sounded him out about Ted Turner‘s reaction to a possible proposal. “It was clear to me that Mrs. Graham enjoyed the idea of Ted Turner coming up to Washington to work for her [as CEO of TBS],” Schonfeld writes on his Web site, WWW.meandted.com. Graham, Schonfeld indicates, was looking for some sort of “hostage” information that she could hold over Turner in forthcoming takeover talks. “One of the hostages I gave to her was my candid assessment of the state of Ted‘s marriage, and his bullying of his wife Janey [Fonda]. The subject of Ted‘s outside love life was also discussed.” In the end, Schonfeld writes, although Turner escorted Graham on a tour of CNN’s Washington bureau, nothing came of their meeting. The former CNN staffer who took them on the tour, he says, once told him, “Mrs. Graham despised [Turner]. She didn’t like the way he treated his wife.”