Maurice Wolfe "Reese" Schonfeld (November 5, 1931July 28, 2020) was an American television

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and executive. Trained as a lawyer, he co-founded

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

with

Ted Turner Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and philanthropist. He founded the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he fo ...

in 1980, and went on to establish

Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ( ...

in 1993.

Early life and education

Schonfeld was born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area. He was of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

descent, the grandson of

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

-speaking immigrants."Judith Weinraub interview of Reese Schonfeld"
August 18, 2009 His father, Philip, worked as a partner in a glass-and-mirror company; his mother, Sarah (Wolfe), was a housewife, secretary, and bookkeeper. He got the nickname "Reese" as a result of his younger sister's mispronunciation of Maurice. He graduated from

Weequahic High School Weequahic High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades, located in the Weequahic section of Newark in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. The school is operated by the Newar ...

. He went on study at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1953. He subsequently earned an M.A. and J.D. degrees from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. However, he never went into practice.

Career

Schonfeld began his career with United Press

Movietone News Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1986, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Australia and New Zealand until 197 ...

in 1956. Later he became vice president of

United Press International Television News United Press International Television News, abbreviated as UPITN, was a television news agency, operating from 1967 to 1985. It was the successor to earlier UPI television news film operations United Press Movietone and United Press International N ...

; when its U.S. business was purchased by

Television News Inc. Television News Inc. (TVN) was an American syndicated news service, providing daily feeds of newsfilm to subscribing television stations in the United States and Canada between 1973 and 1975. Majority-owned by the Coors Brewing Company of Gold ...

(TVN) in 1974, he joined that company for a year. In 1975, after TVN folded, he founded the Independent Television News Association, a service that provided independent

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...

s with pooled news coverage via

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

Birth of CNN

approached Schonfeld to find out about satellites. Schonfeld recalls Turner asking him how much a satellite would cost, and upon hearing the sum Turner exclaimed "only a million dollars a year?", after which Turner acquired his first satellite. Approximately a year later he was approached again by Turner, who wanted to found a 15-hour all-news channel. Schonfeld convinced Turner to increase to a 24-hour news channel. Schonfeld calculated it could be done with a staff of approximately 300 if they used an all-electronic newsroom and satellites for all transmissions. It would require an initial investment of $15–20 million and several million dollars per month to operate. In 1979, Turner sold his North Carolina station, WRET, to fund the transaction and established its headquarters in lower-cost, non-union

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. Schonfeld was appointed first president and chief executive of the then-named

Cable News Network CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

(CNN). He hired

Burt Reinhardt Burton Reinhardt (April 19, 1920 – May 10, 2011) was an American journalist and news executive, who served as executive Vice President of CNN from 1980 to 1982 and the second President of CNN from 1982 to 1990. In his capacity as vice presiden ...

as vice president of the network; Sam Zelman as vice president of news and executive producer;

Bill MacPhail William Curtis MacPhail (March 25, 1920 – September 4, 1996) was an American television sports executive. Early life and family MacPhail was born in Columbus, Ohio, son of Larry MacPhail, a baseball executive and innovator. He was a graduat ...

as head of sports; Ted Kavanau as director of personnel; and Jim Kitchell, former general manager of news at

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, as vice president of production and operations. While at CNN, Schonfeld is credited with originating the

24-hour The modern 24-hour clock, popularly referred to in the United States as military time, is the convention of timekeeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours. This is indicated by the hours (and minutes) pass ...

cable news Cable news channels are television networks devoted to television news broadcasts, with the name deriving from the proliferation of such networks during the 1980s with the advent of cable television. In the United States, the first nationwide ca ...

concept. In 1982, Schonfeld was succeeded as CEO by

after a dispute over Schonfeld's firing of Sandi Freeman and was succeeded as president by CNN's executive vice president,

Post-CNN

After leaving CNN, Schonfeld joined

Cablevision Systems Altice USA, Inc., commonly known as Altice, is an American cable television provider with headquarters in New York City. It delivers pay television, Internet access, telephone services, and original television content to approximately 4.9 milli ...

in New York, where he developed and oversaw the first 24-hour all-news service on a local cable system, News 12 Long Island. He also produced ''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

Magazine on TV'' for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, and assisted in developing "

News Channel 8 WJLA 24/7 News is an American regional cable news television channel in Washington D.C. by ABC-affiliated station WJLA-TV (channel 7) owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The channel provides 24-hour news coverage primarily focused on Washing ...

" for

Allbritton Communications Company The Allbritton Communications Company was an American media company. Based in Arlington, Virginia, Allbritton was the leading subsidiary of Perpetual Corporation, a private holding company owned by the family of company founder and former Riggs ...

. Schonfeld subsequently worked with

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

in planning the International Business Channel. He designed and implemented the

Medical News Network The Medical News Network (MNN) was an American interactive video news service delivered to physicians by satellite. It was launched in 1993 by Whittle Communications H. Christopher Whittle (born August 24, 1947) is an American entrepreneur who ...

, an interactive TV news service, for

Whittle Communications H. Christopher Whittle (born August 24, 1947) is an American entrepreneur who has founded four innovative companies in the fields of education and media, serving as the CEO of each. Whittle Communications, a 1,000-person magazine, television, and ...

in 1993. He also served on the board of Robert Halmi International before it was sold to

Hallmark A hallmark is an official mark or series of marks struck on items made of metal, mostly to certify the content of noble metals—such as platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium. In a more general sense, the term '' hallmark'' can a ...

. In 1992, Schonfeld began developing

(originally the TV Food Network), which launched on November 23, 1993. He acted as president of the network, which was sold to Belo Broadcasting in 1996 and was later resold to the

E. W. Scripps Company The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...

. Schonfeld sold his interest in Food Network to Scripps in 1999. He continued consulting for various media projects and occasionally contributed to ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

''.

Personal life

Schonfeld was married to Pat O'Gorman, sister of poet Ned O'Gorman, until his death. They had one child— Juliette. He was previously married to Karen Lamberti which ended in divorce, together they had 5 children; Alexander, Ellen, Orrin, William, and Ida. Schonfeld was the author of ''Me and Ted Against the World'', an account of the development and early history of CNN, and "The Global Battle for Cultural Domination", an essay in ''Developing Cultures: Essays on Cultural Change''. Schonfeld died on July 28, 2020, at his home in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. He was 88 and had suffered from complications of Alzheimer's disease.

Bibliography

* ''Me and Ted Against the World: The Unauthorized Story of the Founding of CNN '', Harper Collins, 2001, , * ''Developing Cultures, Essays on Cultural Change'', Routledge, 2006, , * "Shadow of a gunman", ''Columbia Journalism Review'', 1975
(available to read here)

References

Notes

General

Biography
''The Huffington Post'' * Kevin Downey

''Media Life Magazine'', March 19, 2001

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schonfeld, Reese 1931 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American journalists 21st-century American male writers American Jews American male journalists American television executives American television journalists CNN executives Columbia Law School alumni Dartmouth College alumni Deaths from dementia in New York (state) Deaths from Alzheimer's disease Food Network HuffPost writers and columnists Journalists from New Jersey Presidents of CNN Weequahic High School alumni Writers from Newark, New Jersey