Longtime anchor Ted Koppel talks state of American journalism

My San Antonio ^ | November 1, 2017 | Jasper Scherer

[GuavaCheesePuff]

In the late 1960s, when Ted Koppel covered the Vietnam War as ABC News’ war correspondent, he would ship his film by air back to the network’s New York studios, a journey that took two to three days. By 2003, when he began covering the Iraq War, Koppel could broadcast from the desert, bringing news to his viewers the same day it happened. Now, Koppel said Wednesday in a lecture at Trinity University, half the American public gets its news immediately on Facebook. “What social media does is give all of us the opportunity to say anything at any time at any length about anybody, without regard to fact-checking or its accuracy,” he said. “That’s something totally new.”

[DoughtyOne]

American journalism is dead.

Someone should have stuck a cork in it. It bled out.

[ClearCase_guy]

“Report what’s important, report it accurately, get it fact-checked, make sure that what you’re saying is right,” Koppel said. “And then let the chips fall.”

He does realize that this would destroy the Democrats, doesn't he?

[Baynative]

Is this the same Ted Koppel who praised serial liar and fake news producer Dan Rather, killed stories about Barack Obama's communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis and denied stories about destruction of evidence to support Hillary Clinton?

...oh

[libertylover]

I don’t remember the details of why, but I remember Ted Koppel as a despicable piece of s***.

[MrEdd]

Walter Cronkite wasn’t subject to fact checking, unless you were in Vietnam or knew someone in Vietnam. Then it was clear that he was full of cheet.

[KarlInOhio]

Was Dan Rather fact checked when he published the forged Texas Air National Guard memos? Was NBC fact checked when it blew up a pickup truck with a model rocket engine to prove they were dangerous? Was the entire media corps fact checked for having their noses up Hillary’s ample backside?

[McGavin999]

I don’t know, I just watched two real journalists on Tucker Carlson. The did actual investigations on NBC and Matt Lauer.

First real journalism I have seen in MSM in years

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Jeez, you mean to tell me Koppel ain't dead yet? Bummer.
 

[DoughtyOne]

Interesting, to a point.

NBC has no credibility with me.

It’s to the point that even if what they say is true, how can I or anyone else know for sure.

Their day is over.

[Calvin Locke]

I remember watching a Koppel piece in the 1980s. PA coal country where a burning underground coal mine made a little town unsafe.

The producer got a couple whose house was being undermined by the fire to stand close to a smoking hole in the ground.

Kopel finishes the interview by telling the couple to get away from the smoke because it's not safe.

The couple was re-interviewed complaining that Kopel made them look like idiots for standing near the smoke, when that's what the producer wanted them to do.

[McGavin999]

The journalists were from Variety. Surprising and gives me a glimmer of hope. We need real journalists, not people influenced by their bias but people who love the truth

[GuavaCheesePuff]

He is on CBS News now, he does CBS Sunday Morning.

[marktwain]

He later added that “a nation like ours cannot survive in freedom if we are incapable of agreeing on something as simple as what is factual.”

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I interpret that to mean: Life was much easier when the establishment media got to decide what was true and what was important for you to know.

We also (wink, wink) decided what was important for you *not* to know.

There has been significant differences in opinion about what is factual in the U.S. for much of our history.

[Pilgrim's Progress]

The title immediately made me think he is either dead or outed. Usually that is the result of “Long-time . . .”

[sparklite2]

It’s to the point that even if what they say is true, how can I or anyone else know for sure.

---

We have the same phenom in FR. I’m sure you’ve seen John Semmens’ articles labeled semi-news, semi-satire. Reading them is fine, but not knowing what is news and what is BS kills the desire to read the articles at all. It’s like eating celery, the food with negative calories because you use up more calories eating it than it supplies as food.

[DoughtyOne]

I agree, and I could care less where the chips fall.

Even this is a problem though, when all investigations begin with Trump Dementia, Russian election tampering, and other things known to be directed at taking him out.

The other side, not so much...

[DoughtyOne]

Yes, I hear ya. That can be a problem.

[McGavin999]

I know. I’m getting sick of it.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Started by the local government saying it was OK to light the local dump on fire IIRC. Still burning to this day.