Jalopnik has uncovered proof that Ted Turner was not joking when he said he had prepared a doomsday video to be CNN's last broadcast at the end of the world.
The odd video features The Army Ground Forces Band performing the old hymn, Nearer, My God, to Thee -- the song allegedly played as the RMS Titanic sank into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.
From Jalopnik:
Thirty-four years ago, at the launch of Ted Turner's Cable News Network, the founder made a grandiose and specific promise about his newly created round-the-clock operation. 'Barring satellite problems, we won't be signing off until the world ends,' Turner declared. And in anticipation, he prepared a final video segment for the apocalypse:
"We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event. We'll play the National Anthem only one time, on the first of June [the day CNN launched], and when the end of the world comes, we'll play 'Nearer My God To Thee' before we sign off."
People thought he was joking. We have proof that he wasn't. Below is the never-before-seen video the last living CNN employee will be required to play before succumbing to radiation poisoning, the plague, zombies, or whatever crazy end Turner saw coming.
The video is archived inside CNN's Mediasource computer system under the heading: "TURNER DOOMSDAY VIDEO -- HFR [hold for release] till end of the world confirmed."
Jalopnik asks:
If this is the last CNN employee alive, in the last CNN bureau on Earth, who do they confirm it with? What does confirmation look like? Who can be the one to make that determination, to pronounce the universe itself dead? Is it Wolf Blitzer himself, ever a fan of the Washington Wizards, and thus a man who would know death when he saw it? Would it be Rick Davis, CNN's head of standards of practices, who has been with the company since its birth and who thus would know CNN's journalistic practices better than anyone?
Or would it be some sort of living embodiment of CNN itself, ready to proclaim its own demise, as Judgment Day is truly the only thing able to bring about the long-anticipated death of cable news?
And who would be around to watch it?
We don't know.
Head over to Jalopnik to see what it will look like on TV when the world ends, assuming you're tuned into CNN.
