Free Republic

In the same issue of Broadcasting & Cable magazine in which Al Gore described the public's deep yearning for Current TV, former ABC anchor (and current NBC Rock Center special correspondent ) Ted Koppel issued one of his lectures on how the elite media has lost its way amidst all the rabble and their incessant partisan blogging and partisan cable news. To Koppel, the nation was much better off when it was guided by a small and wise (and supposedly nonpartisan) national media elite that had the brains to separate the wheat from the chaff of information and tell the...

Keith Olbermann struck back at Ted Koppel on Monday night's edition of MSNBC's "Countdown," saying Koppel's brand of journalism failed and that his own sharp, biting analysis forms the foundation for good journalism. Koppel published an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post, saying the media has lost its objectivity. He heavily criticized MSNBC and Fox News and called Olbermann the most opininated commentator on television's most liberal news network. During a nearly 13-minute long special comment period at the end of his show, Olbermann defended himself and his network. He said people who herald te broadcasting and reporting of Edward Murrow,...

Ted Koppel slams Fox News for being as partisan and biased as MSNBC in an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post. Koppel then stretches reality even farther—beyond the breaking point—by elevating MSNBC to being an enterprise that is as successful financially and ratings-wise as Fox News! Koppel’s opinion piece makes one thing clear, all right, above all else: He is either crazy, delusional or spreading leftist propaganda (maybe all three). For Koppel to even bring down Fox News by alleging it is as hatefully partisan as MSBNC, and then bring MSNBC up to Fox News’ level by crediting it with...

News analysts at NPR – we are told – are held at a different ethical standard because they are news analysts and not commentators. I’m not sure what the difference between a news analyst, reporter or a correspondent is, but I think I know a commentator when I see one. Juan Williams definitely expressed his opinion on Fox News. I’m not so sure if he expressed his opinion on NPR, since it seems, all of his stuff has been wiped off the site.

The son of legendary TV newsman Ted Koppel had the unconditional love of his parents and a second child on the way -- but the twin demons of drugs and booze were a deadly lure he couldn't duck, friends said yesterday. Andrew "Drew" Koppel, 40, had "many substance-abuse issues," said a longtime family friend. Still, that friend found it "shocking" that Koppel died in a stranger's seedy Manhattan apartment Monday after nearly 12 hours of drinking whiskey with a man he had just met in a Hell's Kitchen bar. "What's really puzzling the family is why he ended up...

The son of former Nightline anchor Ted Koppel has been found dead in a New York City apartment, police said. Andrew Koppel, 40, was declared dead around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday after police responded to a 911 call, Det. Joseph Cavitolo told TVGuide.com. A medical examiner will determine the cause of death, he said. Koppel, who worked for the city's Housing Attorney, had been drinking all day Monday in a Hell's Kitchen bar, where he befriended a stranger, Russell Wimberly, the New York Post reported. The two drank all day — Koppel drank straight whiskey — and did not eat anything,...

NEW YORK (AP) - The 40-year-old son of former ABC anchor Ted Koppel has been found dead in an Upper Manhattan apartment, police said Tuesday. Andrew Koppel was declared dead at around 1:30 a.m. Monday in the Washington Heights apartment, Detective John Sweeney said. A medical examiner would determine the cause of death. Koppel worked for the law department at the city Housing Authority, the agency said Tuesday. They would make no other comment...

<p>The son of legendary TV newsman Ted Koppel was found dead in a Washington Heights apartment under mysterious circumstances yesterday morning after a daylong drinking binge with a man he had just met in a Midtown bar, law-enforcement sources said.</p>

The son of legendary TV newsman Ted Koppel died early Monday after a night of drinking that ended in the seedy Manhattan apartment of a pub crawl acquaintance. Andrew Koppel, a 40-year-old attorney with the New York City Housing Authority with a history of alcohol problems, was declared dead around 1:30 a.m., according to the New York Post. Police sources told the newspaper Koppel had stumbled two and a half hours earlier into the Washington Heights apartment of Russell Wimberly, a waiter he had met 12 hours earlier in a Hell's Kitchen bar. A roommate of Wimberly, Belinda Caban, told...

Saying that Obama's first casual reaction to the Christmas bombing was exactly the right one, he blamed the 24/7 news media for forcing the President and the government to focus on this issue. Click on the link for the interview on the BBC. For someone who virtually created the news programming that focused on a single issue, it's more than a little hypocritical.

Matt Frei spoke to BBC World News America's contributing analyst Ted Koppel about President Obama's response to the failed bomb attempt on Christmas Day.

ABC News is negotiating with former "Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel, a 42-year veteran of the network, for a potential return to anchor “This Week” three Sundays a month, broadcast industry sources said. ABC News executives said no offers have been made. Under the proposed Koppel arrangement, the fourth Sunday would rotate among potential future anchors from the network's Washington bureau. ABC News President David Westin wrote in an e-mail: "We are in the middle of the process, and I will not comment on the specifics of whom we are and whom we are not talking to. I’m considering a number...

Andrea Koppel, who left CNN last July after 14 years as an on-air correspondent, has joined M+R Strategic Services, a Washington, DC-based public relations firm with a long list of left of center and solidly left-wing clients, as chief of its Communications Division. Amongst the clients listed on the firm's Web site: Environmental Defense, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, Turner Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, People for the American Way, Campaign for America's Future, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, National Organization of Women - New York State, NARAL Pro-Choice New York, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, as...

What does the California prison system have in common with Harvard University? It costs precisely as much to house, feed and guard one prisoner for one year in a California state prison as tuition, meals and housing cost for a student enrolled for one academic year at Harvard. As far as California taxpayers are concerned, it gets even worse. Their prison system is so overcrowded that it’s reached a breaking point. Either the state finds a long-term solution, or the federal courts have warned that they’ll begin ordering the release of inmates, just to ease the crush. In this two-hour...

Calling the ouster of Dan Rather from CBS News in 2006 a “travesty,” newsman Ted Koppel said today that he hopes the $70 million suit filed by Mr. Rather against CBS and Viacom will bring Mr. Rather “relief from his [emotional] pain.” Mr. Koppel said he “hurt” for Mr. Rather, whom he characterized as a friend. Addressing the “60 Minutes” report about President George Bush’s National Guard service that preceded Mr. Rather’s departure from CBS, Mr. Koppel said the story was “much more correct than incorrect.” Mr. Koppel said that those responsible for the incorrect parts of the report deserved...

Former “Nightline” anchor Ted Koppel was one of Tim Russert’s guests on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” As amazing as it might seem, he made some truly shocking and compelling statements about the Iraq war and the war on terror that virtually no Democrat or media member is willing to accept or report: First, Koppel made it clear that America’s premature departure from Iraq would turn the entire Persian Gulf region into a battlefield between Sunnis and Shia, “something the United States cannot allow to happen” Second, he said the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of the war on terror...

Cyberspace to Ted: The 18-to-34 year-olds aren't disinterested in news, they're disinterested in you -- or Brian Williams or, for God's sake, Bob Schieffer -- telling them what the news is. They're getting plenty of news, all they can handle, actually. They're just getting it on another screen, one which allows them to determine for themselves what is "important".......

Ted Koppel kicked off his neo-pundit career by delivering a stern global warming speech in New York while outside a merciless snowstorm bore down on the Eastern Seaboard in a brutal blast of freezing -- Oh, wait -- that was Al Gore, wasn’t it? I tend to get all these neo-pundits mixed up. Mr. Koppel’s post-Nightline era more correctly began with a January 29 Op-Ed in the New York Times which is actually quite similar to Mr. Gore’s address both in fervent presentation and excruciatingly bad timing. Which may explain my confusion. Ted, likely grateful to now be immersed in...

It's not Ted Koppel's fault that the New York Times has made him a Times contributing columnist. As Koppel writes in yesterday's (Jan. 29) debut column, "And Now, a Word from Our Demographic," the invitation came from an "editor friend of mine," so the fault belongs to whomever assigned, accepted, and edited or rewrote Koppel's self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, late-to-the-party, and punishingly obvious 1,500-word piece about the state of television news. (It's bad.) It's not even Koppel's fault if he thinks he's any good at this columnist thing, when he isn't. If we were to belittle every person who stretched his talents...

Ted Koppel Pens First Piece as 'NY Times' Columnist--Comes Out Swinging By E&P Staff Published: January 29, 2006 12:45 AM ET NEW YORK In his first contribution after being named a New York Times columnist, former ABC newsman Ted Koppel declares, "I cannot help but see that the industry in which I have spent my entire adult life is in decline and in distress." Koppel raps the new "calculated subjectivity" and forced empathy of cable news, and adds: "The accusation that television news has a political agenda misses the point. Right now, the main agenda is to give people what...

ABC news show is down 15 percent in 18-49s The post-Ted Koppel “Nightline” has faced questions about its viability since its debut two months ago, but those questions are hardly new. Koppel faced them for much of the time he anchored the show. What is new is a hefty decline in ratings. Will ABC continue to stand behind the late-night news show, and for how long? The question would seem to gain urgency with the network's improved primetime ratings, making a makever of the 11:30 p.m. timeslot all that more attractive. For the week ended Jan. 15, “Nightline” averaged 3.6...

See this thread. When Ted Koppel left ABC,Al Jazeera asked him to be their anchor; he said, "I'm no Muslim! Instead-- I'm a liberal! PBS for me!"

When Ted Koppel appeared on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" in 2002, he plugged National Public Radio to so much studio applause that host Jon Stewart cracked, "Somebody got themselves a tote bag." At the time, Mr. Koppel was simply another NPR admirer. Now, the former "Nightline" anchor is getting more than just swag -- he's got a new part-time job with NPR, joining the growing ranks of television news stars who are seeking refuge at the Washington, D.C., public broadcaster. While some of the NPR recruits, like Mr. Koppel and CBS newsmen Walter Cronkite and Daniel Schorr, have joined...

By E&P Staff Published: January 12, 2006 11:15 AM ET NEW YORK Veteran broadcast journalist Ted Koppel will join The New York Times as a contributing columnist beginning Jan. 29, Editorial Page Editor Gail Collins announced today. Koppel's column will appear on the Op-Ed page periodically. "This is an exciting, new type of relationship for The Times and I can't think of anyone we'd rather start with than one of the great journalists of our era,” Collins said in a statement. "We're very pleased to provide our readers with Ted's fresh, insightful perspective on current events." In addition to his...

Former ABC News show anchor named managing editor of cable channel. NEW YORK - Ted Koppel has joined the Discovery Channel to make news documentaries, bringing his former top producer and eight other ex-"Nightline" staff members, the cable channel announced Wednesday. Koppel was named managing editor of Discovery, and his first program for the network is due next fall. The longtime ABC News anchor left "Nightline" after 25 years in November. The late-night news show he originated has continued on ABC with three new anchors.

Media dinosaurs gaze in the mirror as disaster looms By JONAH GOLDBERG THE YEAR-ENDING edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press” offered an excellent glimpse at why the elite mainstream media as we know it is facing extinction.“Meet the Press” host Tim Russert invited NBC’s Tom Brokaw and ABC’s Ted Koppel to ladle out some observations from their deep wells of wisdom for all of the world to imbibe. These three giants of television journalism tut-tutted about one government failure after another, from the Katrina response to the government’s inability to provide health care for everybody to our dismayingly low taxes....

Broadcast veterans Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppel agree that Bill Clinton would have gone into Iraq just like George Bush if he were still president in 2003. Appearing on "Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, Brokaw and Koppel also agreed that the press shouldn't be judged too harshly for not pursuing questions about claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. According to a transcript appearing in Editor & Publisher, Koppel defended the media’s treatment of the WMD claims: KOPPEL: In large measure, when the president and his top people tell you, as they did, "Here's our perception of what...

Watching Tom Brokaw, Ted Koppel and Tim Russert this past Sunday wasn't quite like seeing dinosaurs asking each other what's happened to all the tasty fronds, but the year-ending edition of NBC's "Meet the Press" offered an excellent glimpse at why the elite mainstream media as we know it is facing extinction. No doubt intended as a grand treat for the viewing audience, "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert invited NBC's Tom Brokaw and ABC's Ted Koppel to ladle out some observations from their deep wells of wisdom for all of the world to imbibe. These three giants of television...

"You can call me anything you want, but do not call me a racist," said an indignant President George Bush on Dec. 12, commenting on the despicable, opportunistic suggestion that any inadequacies in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina were due to racism. But veteran network media giants Ted Koppel and Tom Brokaw don't quite see it that way. Indeed, they don't appear to see eye-to-eye with President Bush on much of anything if their joint interview with Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press" is any indication. Russert was uncharacteristically tame..

NEW YORK Appearing on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert this week, two broadcast veterans, Tom Brokaw of NBC and Ted Koppel...declared that Bill Clinton would have gone into Iraq just like George Bush if were still president in 2003. Along with Russert, they also argued that it was a "uniformly held belief" that Saddam Hussein had WMD when the Iraq war began. KOPPEL: I mean, the only difference between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration was 9/11. BROKAW: Right. KOPPEL: If 9/11 had happened on Bill Clinton's watch, he would have gone into Iraq. BROKAW: Yeah. Yeah.

"You can call me anything you want, but do not call me a racist," said an indignant President George Bush on Dec. 12, commenting on the despicable, opportunistic suggestion that any inadequacies in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina were due to racism. But veteran network media giants Ted Koppel and Tom Brokaw don't quite see it that way. Indeed, they don't appear to see eye-to-eye with President Bush on much of anything if their joint interview with Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press" is any indication. Russert was uncharacteristically tame toward these two, offering them repeated softballs concerning...

It was a year of goodbyes -- some noble, some less so -- as journalism's old guard departed from the spotlight. And it was a year when some of media's biggest institutions started thinking, in earnest, about reinvention. Dan Rather took his colorful metaphors and erratic temperament from CBS in March, his reputation marred by a flawed report about President Bush and the National Guard. Peter Jennings, suave and substantive, died tragically of lung cancer in August. Ted Koppel, who brought wit and heft to late-night news, left ABC's ''Nightline" in November, headed for less grueling work at HBO. Aaron...

The Talk Shows Sunday, December 25th, 2005 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; musician Wynton Marsalis; and Sen. David Vitter, R-La. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw and former ABC "Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel. FACE THE NATION (CBS): CBS News correspondents review 2005 and a look ahead at 2006. THIS WEEK (ABC): Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and author Peggy Noonan.LATE EDITION (CNN) : No broadcast.

Departing anchor asks audience to support show or network will pull itNEW YORK - As he walked out the door, Ted Koppel couldn’t resist one last dig at the network that almost dumped him three years ago. Koppel, in his final broadcast Tuesday after more than 25 years as anchor of ABC News’ “Nightline,” asked his fans to give successors Martin Bashir, Cynthia McFadden and Terry Moran a fair break when they start on Monday. “If you don’t,” he said, “I promise you the network will just put another comedy show in this time slot. Then you’ll be sorry.”

It is fitting in more ways than one that Ted Koppel devotes the final program in his 26-year reign on ABC's "Nightline" to the charming sociology professor who died from Lou Gehrig's disease and inspired Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays with Morrie." The three 1995 "Nightline" shows in which Koppel talked with Morrie Schwartz about living life and coping with death were among the most memorable of his 6,500 programs. Additionally, his last show, which airs at 11:35 tonight on Channel 7, will show "Nightline" fans what they will be missing with Koppel's departure: The time to devote to one captivating story...

Ted Koppel has announced he is leaving Nightline to Wimp Blintzer. Another lying DimoLeftist traitor dirtbag bites the wienie with relish! Oh happy day! :o)

Congratulations, David Westin. You've replaced serious, competent, respected Ted Koppel with the oily, obsequious Martin Bashir on "Nightline." My only question is, was Jerry Springer not available? Perhaps Westin, the head of ABC News, has not seen the "outtakes" of Bashir's interviews with Michael Jackson from his original "documentary." But I've seen it and so have the many other journalists who were in the Santa Maria courtroom where Jackson was tried for child molestation last spring. I have no doubt most of them had the same reaction as I when they heard today that Bashir had been given a co-hosting...

Goody! Fox News reporting.

Excerpt - [snip] KOPPEL: Let me stop you. CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR):… there would be no oil. KOPPEL: Are you saying you have discovered evidence of an invasion plan against Venezuela or are you saying "if" you discovered a plan? CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR):I'm telling you that I have evidence that there are plans to invade Venezuela. Furthermore, we have documentation: how many bombers to overfly Venezuela on the day of the invasion, how many trans-Atlantic carriers, how many aircraft carriers need to be sent to (inaudible) even during (inaudible). Recently, an aircraft carrier went to Curacao (inaudible) the fact that the...

Koppel will disguise the topic as something like, "Did racism play a part in the Bush Administration's slow response to the New Orleans disaster?" But we all know Koppel. He will do his best to convince the ignorant that Bush, and conservatives, are racist. He will not so much as hint that the true racists are the Mayor of New Orleans who did not lift a finger to evacuate the poor blacks, nor to keep law and order after the hurricane struck; and the governor of Louisana who did not have the Louisiana National Guard in place to respond to...

Tonight on Nightline, during an inteview with the FEMA director, Ted Koppel demanded to know why the Bush Administration did not send fleets of buses into New Orleans to evacuate those too poor to evacuate themselves -- PRIOR TO KATRINA HITTING NEW ORLEANS. For previous hurricanes the Federal Government did not participate in evacuations, only in clean up and recovery. That did not seem to matter much to Koppel since he obviously knew that Mike Brown was too much of a gentleman to smack him for attempting to deceived the American people. However, Koppel does have a point, in a...

THE Patriot Act - brilliant! Its critics would have preferred a less stirring title, perhaps something along the lines of the Enhanced Snooping, Library and Hospital Database Seizure Act. But then who, even right after 9/11, would have voted for that? Precisely. He who names it and frames it, claims it. The Patriot Act, however, may turn out to be among the lesser threats to our individual and collective privacy. There is no end to what we will endure, support, pay for and promote if only it makes our lives easier, promises to save us money, appears to enhance our...

After 25 years, ABC News' "Nightline" is about to learn whether there is life after Ted Koppel. Or is it? The much-honored late-night news program will lose the only anchor it has ever had at the end of the year. Koppel said Thursday he will end his 42-year career when his contract expires in December. ABC News President David Westin and the "Nightline" staff want the show to go on. They're confident it will. But the ultimate decision rests with top ABC executive Anne Sweeney and ABC parent The Walt Disney Co. ABC's secret courtship of David Letterman three years...

NewsMax has learned that the next veteran TV anchorman to depart his chair in the near future is ABC's Ted Koppel. Koppel, who has anchored "Nightline" since its inception in 1980, is resigned to the fact that that his tenure will likely come to a conclusion by December. A Koppel departure would come on the heels of the retirement of NBC's Tom Brokaw (in December) and this week's departure of Dan Rather from the "CBS Evening News." ABC insiders tell NewsMax that the veteran newsman is likely to wind up as the new host of the Sunday morning news show...

NewsMax has learned that the next veteran TV anchorman to depart his chair in the near future is ABC's Ted Koppel. Koppel, who has anchored Nightline since its inception in 1980, is resigned to the fact that that his tenure will likely come to a conclusion by December. A Koppel departure would come on the heels of the retirement of NBC's Tom Brokaw (last December) and this week's departure of Dan Rather from The CBS Evening News. ABC insiders tell NewsMax that the veteran newsman is likely to wind up as the new host of the Sunday morning news show...

8:58 PM PST, February 6, 2005Signs That 'Nightline's' Days May Be NumberedBy Scott Collins, Times Staff Writer Three years after narrowly surviving the ax, ABC's long-running "Nightline" is in jeopardy again. Network parent Walt Disney Co. is serious enough about replacing the late-night news show — hosted by Ted Koppel since 1980 — to have ordered executives to start devising alternatives, according to sources familiar with the plans. ABC News last week shot a pilot for one possible "Nightline" replacement, a freewheeling show hosted by Washington reporter Jake Tapper and Bill Weir, the co-anchor of the weekend edition of "Good...

Although they are not advertising it on their site it appears Nightline was with John Kerry and chronicled his rise and fall on election day. Looks to be an interesting behind the scenes look at what happened on Election day when the lerry campaign went from jubilation that theyhad won the race at 4 PM, to the realization that they had lost it at 4 AM. Thet are running an off the schedule special on it tonight I guess they decided they were going to be there to celebrate with him doesn't it?

As if Dan Rather's use of forged documents to try to discredit President Bush shortly before the election was not enough of a clue to the mainstream media's political agenda, ABC News has now joined CBS News in the political spin game.  What ABC News has done was too elaborate to be called a "mistake." Now that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have become too well known for the mainstream media to continue ignoring them, ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel has broadcast its "investigation" of one of the Swift Boat veterans' charges against John Kerry.  The charge was that...

To say that Nightline found "the one group" who hasn't weighed in on Kerry's Vietnam service is total BS. While we've all heard ad nauseam from the 9-11 families and have heard the press talk about how Bush has offended them by using the images of 9-11, WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN OF VIETNAM, who had to endure John Kerry's legacy of lies, both then and now, during this campaign? I am one of those children, and had to endure teachers who censured me, people who told me (as a small child) "YOUR DADDY DESERVED TO DIE IN VIETNAM -- HE...

NGUYEN VAN KHOAI....In their story about John Kerry's Silver Star on Thursday, Nightline interviewed a Vietnamese man who said this wasn't the first time he'd been asked about Kerry's medals: Back in Tran Thoi, villager Nguyen Van Khoai said that about six months ago he was visited by an American who described himself as a Swift boat veteran and told him another American from the Swift boats was running for president of the United States. Nguyen said the man was accompanied by a cameraman. When I initially wrote about this, my assumption was that the "Swift boat veteran" in question...