quality:corruption
Early life

Turner was born on November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Florence (née Rooney) and Robert Edward Turner II, a billboard magnate. When he was nine, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia, and raised him as an Episcopalian. He attended The McCallie School, a private boys' preparatory school in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Turner attended Brown University and was vice-president of the Brown Debating Union and captain of the sailing team. He became a member of Kappa Sigma. Turner initially majored in classics. His father wrote saying that this choice made him "appalled, even horrified", and that he "almost puked". Turner later changed his major to economics, but before receiving a degree, he was expelled for having a female student in his dormitory room. Turner was awarded an honorary B.A. from Brown University in November 1989 when he returned to campus to give the keynote address for the National Association of College Broadcasters second annual conference.

Expelled from Brown just as tensions in Vietnam were beginning to heat up, Turner joined the United States Coast Guard Reserve in order to fill his service obligation before he ended up getting drafted. Honored by the United States Navy Memorial with its Lone Sailor Award in 2013, Turner told The Washington Post, "I liked boats", and ended up getting "deployed to some pretty sweet places — Charleston and Fort Lauderdale."