Back to TVNewsCheck Home

Reese Schonfeld, First CNN President, Dies

CNN Business | by Brian Stelter

Maurice “Reese” Schonfeld, who helped launch the cable news era as the first president of CNN, has died. He was 88. A brash newsman from Newark, N.J., he teamed up with Ted Turner in 1979 to create CNN, which launched on June 1, 1980.