For a new generation, Ted Koppel is the old guy on a huge screen behind Jon Stewart who occasionally reminds the fake-news anchor what real journalists do. Yesterday, he had some tougher things to say to future news people.
At a Fordham University forum sponsored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the 67-year-old Koppel weighed in on the fate of 75-year-old Dan Rather, who is suing CBS for mistreating him in the furor over George Bush’s National Guard Service and failure to serve in Vietnam.
It was a “travesty,” Koppel said, that Rather was “squeezed out” for a story that was “much more correct than incorrect.”
Expanding on the woes of journalists at TV networks owned by self-protecting conglomerates, he pointed out that, as part of the Walt Disney Company, “ABC News is a pimple on the elephant’s behind.”
Last night Koppel got a Lifetime Achievement Award from the TV Academy. Looking back, he told a TelevisionWeek reporter why could never get an interview with Bush in the White House.
When the Decider was first running in 2000, Koppel asked what qualified him and Bush cited his experience as a governor, running a baseball team, and the fact that he was a loving husband and father.
Koppel observed that those were good qualifications for a president of the Kiwanis Club, but not the United States. He could never get to see Bush again, but Koppel may have doing the Kiwanis an injustice.
I remember that interview! And he was spot on, too. I miss you, Ted. The new Nightline isn't bad, but they just wasted an entire episode this week on Kanye West.
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