With one final Tuesday with Morrie, Ted Koppel ended his 25-year run on “Nightline” last night, and bloggers — whether they are mourning or saying good riddance — have plenty to say about it.
“I always say the only two things I enjoy watching on TV are ‘Nightline’ and Sunday golf,” writes Scott Greider of Scott’s Simple Story. “I haven’t always agreed with Ted Koppel, but I’ve always — always — appreciated him and his show. Very sad day for television and news in America.” The Eleventh Hour was equally sad and reverent before the show, writing: “Shhhhh … Ted Koppel’s last ‘Nightline’ is starting.”
A number of bloggers picked up on Koppel’s final sign-off — a warning, as The Eleventh Hour put it, to “give the new guys a chance or expect ABC to pull the plug. I think this is right. Koppel, while he is the last of the old school (read: good, dedicated) broadcast journalists on television, leaves a program that still (usually) embodies broadcast journalism’s potential. … While very talented, Koppel was second to the show’s concept and that means, in the right hands, it can go on.” Anthony’s Annotations is slightly more worried about “Nightline”‘s chances, “given ABC has been itching in the past to replace it with something that’d ‘appeal to my demographic’ (read: something annoying/lame and fluffy). Koppel’s farewell/closing thought seems to address as such; instead of focusing on himself, Koppel downplayed his importance of being an anchor, and pleaded for viewers to continue watching, or ABC would just put another comedy show on in its time slot.”
Not everyone is getting misty-eyed about Koppel’s departure, of course. “I know that many of you consider Koppel to be one of the brighter lights of fairness and truth in the modern MSM, but I do not share your view,” writes Mark A. Kilmer. “After Reagan freed the hostages in ’81, I felt it was time for Ted Koppel to get off the air, and he’s only dragged it out for twenty-five more years.” (Still, Kilmer adds that Koppel was treated “lousy” by ABC, and says he hopes “Ted can land a good job with cable.”) Over at the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, Tim Graham begins by saying Koppel “will be widely revered and remembered as a voice for hard news and serious long-form reporting” before launching this broadside: “But Koppel also has a record with some serious (sometimes atrocious) liberal bias,” Graham writes. “One of the most recent: going to Vietnam to interview communists to prove John Kerry was right about his war record.”
Koppel’s exit after 42 years at ABC completes a tumultuous year in which all of network news’ big anchors have moved on. As the Washington Post‘s Tom Shales notes, Koppel “has been insistently vague” about where he’s headed (and the blog Where’s Teddy Now? unfortunately doesn’t provide any additional insight).
Wherever he ends up, we wish him luck.
