Ted Koppel, Bad Reporter

[cal04]

ABC News veteran Ted Koppel ladles out self-serving news nostalgia in the Washington Post.
By Jack Shafer
http://www.slate.com/id/2274927/pagenum/all/#p2

I know of no more sorry a spectacle than the wizened newsman weeping with nostalgia for the golden age of journalism—which just happens to coincide with his own glory days.

(snip)
This isn't the first time Koppel has complained about the ruination of TV news by the cable channels. In 2006, he penned a similar op-ed in the New York Times upon leaving ABC News after working there for 42 years. In both the Post and Times pieces, he accuses the cable networks of giving audiences what they want instead of what they need to know because it's the best way to secure advertising profits. Such profit-pandering was unlikely in the 1960s, he writes in the Post, because network TV news "operated at a loss or barely broke even," a fulfillment of the "FCC's mandate" that broadcasters "work in the 'public interest, convenience and necessity.' "

(snip)
If Koppel is so keen on criticizing the sensationalizers and popularizers of TV news who are bent on turning profits, won't he please look in the mirror? In 1979, when American hostages were taken in Tehran, ABC News capitalized on being the only one of the big-three networks with a presence in the country to start nightly special broadcasts titled The Crisis in Iran: America Held Hostage. That Koppel-anchored show morphed into the profitable Nightline franchise. I can't take a wrecking ball to everything Koppel has done in his life. He obviously did some good work with Nightline. But the ambulance-chasing and audience-pandering contained in that show set the template for the coverage of O.J. Simpson, Natalee Holloway, Anna Nicole Smith, Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, the Balloon Boy, and others.

There's a lot wrong with broadcast and cable news, but hustling for profits isn't their main fault and never has been. In fact, profitability is a good thing for TV news because, as Socolow indicates, it gives news divisions the muscle they need to push back any person, institution, corporation, or government bureaucracy that would try to stifle independent reporting.

[Doctor_J]

1. Shafer's last line is preposterous

profitability is a good thing for TV news because, as Socolow indicates, it gives news divisions the muscle they need to push back any person, institution, corporation, or government bureaucracy that would try to stifle independent reporting.

Huh? Making huge profits guarantees that "news" divisions will pander to whatever "person, institution, corporation", gives them (the most) money, and whatever evil fuck (murdoch) pays their ridiculous salaries.

Edit: rec, since this bizarre critique of a bizarre piece by Koppel needs to be seen.

[JHB]

2. I like it aleady. I'll have to read the full article.

Koppel helped create the very conditions he now condemns, and brushed off criticism as "the right complains, the left complains, we must be getting it about right".

If Koppel had been doing more of that "old news bureau" sort of reporting and not skewed his Nightline guest list toward conservatives and "pro-business" types, we might have averted the situation we now find ourselves, both economically and media-wise.

How many shows did you do about media consolidation, Ted? How many featured critics of it?

[tabasco]

3. You got that right.

I hate to see these asswipes worship themselves.

[FarLeftRage]

4. The guy is a fucking idiot like any other media whore...

complaining about the very same conditions he helped to create... fucking asshole that he is!!

[jpgray]

5. Shafer's an idiot

The pursuit of profit led to media monopolies--Rupert Murdoch? Times/Mirror? Clear Channel? It led to the chasing of Wall Street favors over all else, resulting in buy-outs of experienced reporters, shuttering of bureaus, decimation of beat reporting, Pulitzer-chasing superficial scandal-mongering, simpering plagiarists like Glass and Blair, moronic editors like Peter Beinart, etc., etc.

What a load of tripe. Koppel's not much better, but for fuck's sake people.

[Crunchy Frog]

6. I used to like him and watched him pretty religiously.

I stopped watching after the umpteenth time that he devoted a show to the O.J. Simpson ridiculousness.

[Lil Missy]

7. mark for later