Ted Koppel’s Delusions About TV News
This truth, Koppel tells us, “is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me.” Yes, some commentators are indeed guilty of mistaking their opinions for facts. Beck, as the most recent controversy of his coverage of George Soros has made clear, is most guilty of this charge. But Moynihan’s comment that “everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts” is itself somewhat flawed. The problem is that, as historians know, one chooses which facts to emphasize and hold as important when one makes an argument. Often those with a contending view will emphasize other facts they believe contradict their opponent’s argument. Very infrequently is the issue of distorting a “fact” the real issue at hand.
Indeed, Koppel ends his piece by making an argument — one that conservatives make a lot and that liberals dismiss. He writes:
But when our accountants, bankers and lawyers, our doctors and our politicians tell us only what we want to hear, despite hard evidence to the contrary, we are headed for disaster. We need only look at our housing industry, our credit card debt, the cost of two wars subsidized by borrowed money, and the rising deficit to understand the dangers of entitlement run rampant.
Where have I heard this kind of argument before? Oh yes — I believe it was by someone talking on Fox News! Perhaps Mr. Koppel should consider applying to them for a new job. A lot of people would like to see him on a major network again.
Yes, he is correct that one problem is that the news division is now seen in the same way as the entertainment division, and like them, they have to show a profit or make budget cuts or face cancellation. Originally, they were supposed to be supported by the entertainment division, and were exempt from the same rules.
But we live in a new age, and the news executives have no choice but to take reality into account. No one hardly watches the big three (CBS, ABC and NBC) 7 pm news shows anymore, and in fact, with the internet and cable, there is no need to. And by the way, were Koppel or the other anchors willing to save their bureaus and correspondents by taking cuts in their average $8 million a year salaries — an act that alone might have prevented the loss he so bemoans of the overseas bureaus?
As for his claim that the old broadcasts “offered relatively unbiased accounts of information,” it is simply not true. Nor is Koppel’s claim that the reporters were only “motivated to gather facts about important issues.”
And so we learn that Mr. Koppel is now an analyst for BBC America. Isn’t the BBC that wonderful outfit that is so biased and one-sided — especially in its treatment of Israel — that most critical listeners and viewers know immediately to take anything it says with a grain of salt? Perhaps Ted Koppel is not aware of this and, recalling the reputation of old that the BBC once had, thinks of it the same way he thinks of the networks in our country in the ’40s , ’50s, and ’60s.
Maybe we should all wait for Al Jazeera America to finally get on the cable channels. Then we can all find a true objective source we know we can trust.
Update:
It has been pointed out to me by the indomitable Jack Shafer of Slate.com, who wrote about Koppel here, as well as in an e-mail from retired top editor Ed Kosner, that the truth is that LBJ never made the statement that has been so widely quoted- including by me above-that “if we lost Cronkite, we’ve lost the country,” or whatever version of that quote has made the rounds. The real story has been discussed by press critic W. Joseph Campbell at his “Media Myth Alert” blog. As Campbell writes, “the frequency with which the quote attributed to Johnson is invoked certainly has made it among the most famous, if most dubious, turns of phrase in American journalism.” A lesson learned. We all have to check and re-check our sources before citing a quote, no matter how many others have made the same mistake.
Thank you, Professor Radosh, for shining the light of your mind on this pretentious, self-absorbed, over-blow-dried case for the proposition that “Vanity thy name is not only woman but also man.”
It is refreshing to read a blog that does not kow-tow to him, as he believes is his due, or go along with his implied belief that he ever was or still is God’s gift to journalism when he didn’t even have the cojones to be in the same room with his interviewees on NIGHTLINE.
Koppel was on the main set, with the lighting arranged to exaggerate his already excessive combination of air and hair, while the “guest” was stuck in a separate interrogation room with no human contact, even though the two (TK and his “guest”) were invariably in the same city, i.e., Washington.
How is that “journalism”?
His real role model was the Wizard of Oz, not Edward R. Murrow.
Ted is a man passionately in love with the sound of his own voice. Thank you for applying your analytical skills to this self-deluded pomposity whose recollection of the “good old days” is so far from reality that he should, perhaps, consider going in for tests.
Koppel doesn’t regret the loss of objectivity. He regrets the loss of control and power. Now it’s a marketplace, and his type of product isn’t what people want; or at least, they don’t want the product when the merchants lie about it. Maybe if people like him got together and said, “ok, we can’t deny our own bias, but we can make an open and honest effort to prevent news in an unbiased manner, and part ot that process is to reveal what our own biases are.”, then people would buy it. Hannity does that. And I believe what he says a lot more than what the msm says. At least you know for sure where he is coming from, rather than being blind-sided by some secret agenda.
Shortly before the 1988 presidential election, Koppel had Michael Dukakis on Nightline to give Dukakis a last opportunity to make his case to the American people (Koppel’s phrase). Koppel’s daughter was working for the Dukakis campaign.
One may argue that it was legitimate to have Dukakis appear, but not with Koppel as interviewer.
And not without giving Poppy equal time.
Good essay. A couple of points. First, whatever one thinks of Beck and Olbermann, they are not journalists/reporters; they are commentators. Koppel’s daughter (I think), Andrea, was a complete left-wing hack when she worked at CNN. Lastly, I actually saw AL Jazeera US on a cable channel at my gym in NYC (of course). Nearly put my fist through the TV.
Koppel, Murrow, Cronkite, Schorr, and the rest of the gang were the first generation of TV “news” presenters. They had a captive audience and came to consider themselves the voice of the people though their lives and experiences were about as far from “the people” as a fish is from a dragon. The hubris, pomposity and arrogance they exhibited nightly eventually led to alternate news sources, resulting in conservative talk radio pioneered by Rush Limbaugh, and then on TV by Fox News.
It’s the success of Rush, Sean, Bill, Dennis, Glen, et. al. that frightens them and has them dazed. They had the reins of power over the masses, but revolution occurred, and their lofty egos, that for decades have told them they know better than the rabble what and how to think, have left them wondering what has happened.
Sounds like our government, no?
There is intrinsically no such thing as an “objective and above the fray” individual. How is anyone, for instance, disinterested regarding an evil man like Joseph Mengele? Is an allegedly mainstream journalist supposed to approach his medical experiments on unwilling victims in a morally neutral and dispassionate manner? I am sure that Ted Koppel is genuinely sincere—and that makes him especially dangerous. Such an individual will first lie to themselves, and then proceed to try and seduce others into also believing their bovine excrement.
What is Glenn Beck saying about George Soros that is questionable? Where does he differ from David Horowitz? It seems to me that Beck has an airtight case against the utopian billionaire. Soros is a soft totalitarian. He is a very dangerous man.
David,
I suggest you read Jonathan Tobin’s piece in Commentary contentions that I linked to. The issue is not that Soros is evil- he is- but what Beck is saying, which as Tobin shows, is something quite different.
Here is another opinion regarding George Soros:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/29937
It is said that Soros’ own mother was anti-Semitic. At the minimum, he seems indifferent towards his Jewish background. A case can be legitimately made that Soros is a self-hating Jew. The man seems to have unresolved issues to say the least.
What about David Horowitz? What does he say concerning this controversial manner? Horowitz has spent a lot of time investigating Soros.
It seems that Beck is being attacked because he referred to Soros’ World War II experience, in Soros’ own words, which certainly was not the physical and mental experience of a survivor of the camps.
I suggest you and Tobin view Beck’s program. He does not trash Soros for his behaviour as a 14 year old in German occupied Hungary and to my way of thinking was too sympathetic, considering that I met and became friendly with a survivor of the camps, who suffered the outrageous treatment that Soros did not witness, which served to provide the contrast.
He unlike Soros became in adult life one of the most sympathetic and pleasant of people in our community.
By the way Soros did state in the interview that his time in Hungary during the German occupation was his happiest.
Very well put, Cynic. Good insight.
Tobin doesn’t show anything of the kind! If anything, Beck waas too kind. His portraint wasn’t as nuance, nor as damning.
Soros gets props for undermining Communist regimes? Tell that to the Russians who suffered when he went after the ruble. How about the Brits when he made a billion plus off the pound? Communist Thailand and the baht? No?
Pamela Geller on Atlas Shrugs was the first to label Soros the puppet master. Liberty Chick has equally damning evidence. Peter Schweizer’s Do As I Say (Not As I Do) has an entire chapter on Soros.
Lefties like Tobin don’t want the gravy train to stop.
I am a huge fan of Commentary Magazine. Jennifer Rubin is one my absolute “go to” essayists (Charles Krauthammer, VDH, Jonathan Goldberg, Michael Barone being some others)
But, the following comment by Jonathan Tobin has me a bit unsettled.
But whatever actually happened, as even Beck stated, Soros was just “surviving” an impossible situation, and it is simply inadmissible for anyone to speak in a judgmental fashion about his conduct or to demand “remorse.” Beck is no position to pontificate about the conduct of Holocaust survivors and should refrain from even commenting about this subject.
Hmmm. “Beck is in no position”, smacks of something that I’m not sure is intentional, and perhaps is not even there…but…I have read the above paragraph several times and can’t help but come away with a tinge of resentment.
I’m not a Beck follower. This is not about Beck, per se.
However, Soros’ character and his willingness to sell out his country and all of its people against their will and against their fiscal survival, is an apple falling not far from his adolescent tree. The comparison and/or contrast is a subject that certainly should not be taboo or rejected out of hand…and I certainly do not agree that some people are “in the position” to discuss it and some people are “forbidden” from “going there”…because…they are not “the correct people” to be doing so.
I understand the sensitivities and I respect the need for caution and respect on the issue or issues surrounding the horrific choices forced upon an innocent people. But do we need a license, special permission slip to view the horrors of that era? And who grants such a license? Tobin? Abe Foxman? Soros himself?
One may certainly critique whether a delicate issue was handled with appropriate grace or dignity. But the edict of “don’t go there, you are not on the approved list” seems a bit indelicate itself.
Soros and the Shadow Party are indeed a subject that David Horowitz examined in detail. His motivations and intentions are fair game. His manipulations are fair game. And his character as well as his history, and all that he is…is fair game as well.
I hope I am deemed “in a position” to have made this comment.
With the greatest respect and caution, I suspect that she meant that Beck has not been in a position where different choices are a death warrant. It does give me pause when criticizing Soros on the Holocaust.
I would equally quail from weighing in on waking up in the middle of an operation and its effects on one’s mental state. I am, perhaps over sensitive, though. So…I don’t know. You’re right that it’s not a good idea to say some people or opinions are more privileged than others.
I could not exactly explain the attitude of some, whose work I usually find agreeable, disappointing me by attacking the messenger, until you clarified it for me; some messengers are more equal than others.
It was so strange because it was Soros’ own words that were used to convict him. But then it seems that factual and objective reporting is but a dream.
I forget that expression about walking in another man’s shoes – “Unless you’ve walked in another man’s shoes, don’t throw stones” or something like that. Those who experienced the holocaust should not be criticized by those who haven’t lived it? But I agree with you. Some acts are so horrendous, even if performed when young, they can expose on the adult.
As for Koppel, he is an intelligent man. Therefore, one can only come to the conclusion that he is either delusional or disingenuous.
Jennings was slime. He was anti-American (as was his mother, virulently so), he was anti-Israel.
Cronkite was an intentional deceiver of the public.
Rather, a cosmic joke.
Koppel knows that the left held a stranglehold on the “news” and an even greater chokehold on pertinent facts. They buried, distorted and fractured the truth in order to present a left, lefter, leftist view of every major issue. Talk radio, Fox News and blogs have uncovered these sins time and again, but it’s the tip of the iceberg.
O’Reilly is a creature created by the steam valve of the strangled voices in a center right country that was being lied to nightly by a group of liars far to the left of them.
If Koppel doesn’t like where news is now, he needs only one item to find the root cause.
A mirror.
“Koppel knows that the left held a stranglehold on the “news” and an even greater chokehold on pertinent facts.”
Ted Koppel is convinced that the journalistic elites of his era were above political ideology. They were pragmatic individuals who arrived at their conclusions in a thoughtful and logical manner. How could they be considered far left of the political spectrum? They never tossed a Molotov cocktail at anyone. As for the right-wingers, doesn’t everybody realize they are crazier than bedbugs? Koppel and his buddies were simply middle-of-the-roaders.
What Koppel and we enlightened Progressives long for is to return to a time when objective, unbiased reporting was unchallenged by extremist outlets and horribly biased groups like Fox News. If we could eliminate by law or prosecute anybody who is biased like conservative groups, we can return to objective reporting. Having Fox<News around only questions The Narrative and horribly confuses people and this is not in our national interest.They should be outlawed in the name of fairness and freedom of speech.
Don’t forget tolerance.
I know this was meant as a joke, right? It is like when Keith Olbermann gets all flummaxed about how horribly biased Fox News is. Only liberals can be so blinded to this incredible hypocracy.
Yes, it was a joke (satire, to be precise). Too bad there isn’t an official HTML “sarcasm” tag. Perhaps we can create our own unofficial tags. How about:
[s] [/s] – normal sarcasm
[hs] [/hs] – heavy sarcasm
[vhs] [/vhs] – very heavy sarcasm
[xs] [/xs] – extreme sarcasm
Koppel doesn’t regret the loss of objectivity. He regrets the loss of control and power. — PJM poster
Bingo!
Let me second the praise for “proreason’s” #2 remark. “(Koppel) regrets the loss of control and power. ”
I loved loved NIGHTLINE, it was dynamic and beautifully produced. But I really loved the show when it was “AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE.”
Ted Koppel was the late seventies’ answer to Big Bill O’Reilly. Every night we’d tune in to watch him thump some stupid Iranian Revolutionary. The Revolutionary was often an effete bearded creep, or a snarling animal with hair growing out of his nostrils.
Either way, they were often executed or in exile within a few weeks of their TV appearance.
I loved the show, Ted was like The Shat tearing into Klingons on the old STAR TREK. But even as a kid, I knew Koppel was just a performer in a national pageant. And Koppel was clearly a model for O’Reilly, as NIGHTLINE was a model for FOX NEW.
This is eery. Now I remember why I stopped watching broadcast news. It was all those pompous egomaniacs. I thought it was me. Snide comments, half-truths, skewed facts. And this is for you Brian Williams you Quakebuttock!!! Take that.
I do honestly believe TV news was unbiased back in the day, like when the stock market crashed and Roosevelt went on TV to reassure the nation.
And I personally remember watching Roosevelt on TV reassuring the nation when the market crashed in 29…of course, I wasn’t born until 48 but, like Ted, I never let facts get in the way of the news.
Yeah, those were the golden days of objectivity. The TV journalists were all white, males, and came from elite colleges touting the new affirmative action that didn’t apply them–sort of like the universal draft that never applied to the “affluent society.” Now the TV journalists are still mostly all white, or “act white,” are now gender balanced, come from elite colleges, and appear to be mostly ex-lawyers with the disposition of a used car salesman, or a shill standing in front of a brothel. Yeah, now there’s some objectivity.
Eerily cogent essay/commentary. Now I recall why I gave up on watching broadcast news. The snide comments, the half-truths, the skewed facts, the Brian Williams of it all.
We used to say, “if you cut them they would bleed hairspray”.
If you cut them today, they would bleed a Molotov cocktail.
Ron – Good piece. My own take on Koppel’s statement (as you quoted it) is that when everyone around you is just like you, you are unlikely to see the bias. I am old enough, though, to remember that there was a time when Newsweek, more or less, could separate fact from opinion. Now, what’s left of it, can’t tell the difference. There was a time when the New York Times was a trustworthy newspaper, now it’s just a left-wing rag. I can remember how trustworthy the Times used to be. During the first Lebanon War, back in the early eighties, the late A.M. Rosenthal who was the editor kept a tight leash on reporters so as to prevent them from editorializing in the news columns. (By contrast, the Washington Post was a joke; during that war the news could be found in the paper’s editorial, while the editorials appeared in the news columns.) Alas, the New York Times is going the way of Newsweek, unable to separate fact from opinion.
As for TV news, I gave up on it long ago. I remember a report on CNN about Israel where the Arabs were shouting something. From earlier news report on another station, I new what they were saying (and it wasn’t pretty). The reporter feigned stupidity by not telling the audience what it was they were saying. That was about the last time I cast my eyes on CNN.
Today, I read no newspapers and about the only channel I watch is cable Fox, although irregularly. I get my news primarily from blogs on Pajamas Media, Commentary Contentions, NRO, the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal, and sometimes the Jerusalem Post because I find them trustworthy sources. I await the day the MSM signs off for ever.
Limbaugh had this fatuous self important pygmy down pat. Stopped watching him when his “objectivity” was getting in the way of the facts. He was clever about it though. His “non-partisanship” included the trick of OMISSION. What a gasbag.
David Thompson and cfbleachers:
Re Soros, I’m with Tobin and Radosh. Soros is scum but judging his actions in adolescence under Hitler from a modern perspective is difficult. Recall that the current pope was in Nazi uniform at the time.
Read Weisel’s wrenching account in ‘Night’ of his descent to anger and hatred for his helpless and loving father and you begin to get some flavor of the monstrous psychological impact the concentration camps had on familial and communal relationships. Cannibalism was not unknown in the camps.
Some survivors chose to speak about their experiences, most didn’t. No decent person asks a survivor of the camps how he or she survived. Soros volunteered to tell the worst about himself. Others did far worse things to survive and never spoke.
There is context also to be considered with regard his mother’s purported anti-Semitism. Hungarian Jews were a special group. Hungary was the first country in Europe to allow Jews into its universities. Hungarian Jews were generally more secular, educated and prosperous than their cousins in other parts of Eastern Europe. (Note how many of the mathematicians and physicists on the Manhattan Project were Hungarian Jews.) Inevitably, many looked down on their more religious less secular and educated brethren.
My grandmother who lectured in German literature came from a wealthy Hungarian Jewish family. The professor was an anti-Zionist and hated every moment she was forced to live in Israel. My mother never said it but I suspect grandma didn’t have a high opinion of her fellow Jews or Judaism in general.
But like the adolescent future pope, she lived in a very different world in a very different time and I’m in no position to judge her.
David, I don’t judge the adolescent, but the life of the man.
His involvement with J Street, his tearing apart of multiple countries.
Are we to start his lifetime in adulthood? My point on Beck/Soros is that we do not need to carve away his teen years when seeing the whole of the man.
And, in terms of who is “fit” to judge, I am not inclined to cast out those whose voices condemn the wrongs and try to find what is right.
“Recall that the current pope was in Nazi uniform at the time.”
Indeed, as long as you mean the Hitlerjugend organization where membership was mandatory for all German youths.
Now, how about placing Soros next to Edith Stein to draw some moral lessons? Or perhaps not. He is alive, she is dead.
No decent person asks a survivor of the camps how he or she survived. Soros volunteered to tell the worst about himself. Others did far worse things to survive and never spoke.</I?
Under most circumstances I would tend to agree with you David. I would never ask a survivor of the Holocaust what they did in order to survive. There are some questions one simply does not ask.
However, in this case, and speaking as a journalist, once Soros chose to speak about this he opened himself up to questions both about how he survived and criticism of how he did it.
Moreover, a "decent" person might realize they were forced to do unspeakable things in order to survive, and yet feel remorse for having done it. I would venture to guess that horror at some of what they had to do to survive is why many Holocaust survivors have not spoken about it.
Soros chose to, and therefore made it fair game. Were he an average person perhaps this would not be the case. But as the libel laws reflect, and as every journalist knows, when you are in public life — and Soros manifestly is the rules become very different.
In the interests of full disclosure (I know, strange coming from an actual journalist yes?) I am a fan of Glenn Beck, although I will acknowledge he does tend to go off the deep end from time to time. This would seem to be one of those times, but then again with Soros, perhaps not.
Patrick
But Soros was not a survivor of the camps. He did not see the horrors.
He witnessed the people who were dispossessed of their worldly goods and as he said in the TV interview it was like watching the stock exchange, but he did not see them dispossessed of their lives.
Way back when Ted Koppel first came on the tube, I wondered . . .
“Why does Alfred E. Newman have his own show?”
Still wondering.
20. Banned by Huffpo
Way back when Ted Koppel first came on the tube, I wondered . . .
“Why does Alfred E. Newman have his own show?”
Still wondering.
Yes, I laughed because I remember thinking the same thing. This man was not popular at our house.
“But like the adolescent future pope, she lived in a very different world in a very different time and I’m in no position to judge her.”
You seem to misunderstand the theological concept of judging. We have no right to judge the soul of another person. Only God can do that. We have the right, nonetheless, to look at the evidence and arrive at a conclusion that their behavior is not acceptable. In this particular instance, it is very fair to describe the woman as a self-hating Jew. George Soros was also apparently raised in such a cultural milieu. Does he deserve eternal damnation? Once again, only God can make that sort of judgment. This human limitation does not prevent us from asserting that Soros has profound inner struggles regarding his relationship with other secular and religious Jews.
“… CBS TV anchor [Cronkite] was himself on the anti-war side in the debate and was hardly objective?” <– Inaccurate.
@#5– You’ll find Cronkite was print reporter and war correspondent; Murrow a correspondent as well years before their television news gigs. What sets them apart was their writing skills which was necessary for Murrow to even hire people to his staff back in the radio days. Koppel was a field reporter for years, too. Hardly mere ‘news presenters’ such as much of the roster at Fox. Can’t see Megyan Kelly parachuting into France or flying along side Andy Rooney on a bombing mission over Germany for Stars & Stripes. But then, Fox is not a news outlet but a propaganda arm of the GOP.
Ron, I believe the ABC News correspondent you are referring to in your sixth paragraph was Lisa Howard, wasn’t it? She committed suicide (at least, that was the official verdict) on July 4, 1965, ironically enough.
Yes, Thank you. I was referring to Lisa Howard, who privately was a committed leftist. I know this because at one point, I was referred to her by a “comrade” who told her to get me hired at ABC TV news.
What, you mean like Edgar Snow and Walter Duranty? (Yeah, right.)
“Relatively unbiased”?
His Majesty Theodore Koppel laments the days when his elitism was relatively unchallenged.
I personally tend to think that Noam Chomsky has been too kind to the US media. Imagine that for a given topic of interest, whether it be soaring health care costs, civilian casualties in Iraq, the financial crisis, or whatever, that all knowledge of it is like a completed 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Now imagine that the US media version of it is like that same puzzle but with anywhere from, say, 900 to 990 pieces missing from it. And with the only difference between supposedly liberal and conservative media, large corporate media and individual blog sites, is which of those relatively few pieces get used and from which part of the overall puzzle.
While it’s easy to point to Fox News as being a crap news source due to it being one that uses very few pieces and with a very deliberate agenda in mind, even the supposedly much more serious NY Times, despite it using more pieces of the greater overall puzzle than Fox, still fails much more often than not as being a complete, authoritative source on any topic of interest. People who really want to know about something have to be very good at research to gather up even the majority of the pieces to that topic of interest. Unfortunately 24/7 cable news and the Internet, instead of being this vast library of knowledge at one’s fingertips or remote has instead become an even more vast matrix of scams, mindless chatter, propaganda, and “boutique” news sources meant to target certain demographics for the benefit of advertisers, with the net result is that people are actually less informed than ever but personally think otherwise since they’ve been exposed to supposedly more news than ever. Hence you have one reason why political debates have gotten so divisive — everyone thinks his/her handful of puzzle pieces makes up most of the true picture: health care costs have skyrocketed due to greedy lawyers and bogus lawsuits, the CRA caused the financial crisis, Hussein did have WMD’s, and so on.
That WMD link shows how at times when truly resourceful, investigative journalism is really needed, even the NY Times can become just another worthless Fox News, and which is pretty much in keeping with Chomsky’s old points.
BitChie running with Chompsky. Goldstein is going to get envious!
The But Crack point presented here is very simple. Those other than BitChie lack the necessary skills in critical thinking. They lack the ability to digest, analyze and form conclusions unless they are pre-masticated by some unspecified all knowing But Crack approved entity. It would be difficult to come up with a more insidiously totalitarian world view, in that those not in the arbitrarily created BitChie feel good zone are predetermined to be relegated to being But Crack Drones awaiting historically imperative moral lobotomies.
Really BitChie, there are others with opinions and ideas that differ from yours, who do know that the Satanic Fox News channel and the misguided but Angelic NYT are commercial enterprises, dealing in whatever the respective organizations desire. It’s their money. They are putting their asses on the line, and the buying public will decide as to what they want, and what the commercial outcome of said news organizations will be, thus their existence. The notion that a Great Unwashed needs Divine Platonic Guidance (BitChie approved!) is so archaic, that BitChie may as well be Rip Van But Crack Squared.
The BitChie But Crack desire to control the “World” is so overwhelming. One wonders if one would have free choice of oxygen molecules in But Crackland.
Goldstein/Koppel deal in greasy gin.
Have one on the house.
Well said, Mr. Lucky. You are the only one to remind that today’s news outlets are commercial enterprises trying to turn a profit. The left is very well aware that FOX News’ success means that the great unwashed is listening to the FOX point of view rather than the mainstream like NYT, CNN, MSNBC, etc. It really drives the left nuts, which is why they hate FOX News.
“…Fox News! Perhaps Mr. Koppel should consider applying to them for a new job. A lot of people would like to see him on a major network again.”
ZING!
There was never such a time in Mr. Koppel’s career. From whence does he draw this fantasy? All media have been partisan since the founding of the nation. Only in recent times have they adopted the lie of unbiased. No person who can read, write and hear could believe it.
Well done Ron Radosh
And by the way, were Koppel or the other anchors willing to save their bureaus and correspondents by taking cuts in their average $8 million a year salaries
I remember when Koppel destroyed Al Campanis by asking him why there were no black managers in MLB at the time, and thinking “well why are there no black network anchors.”
I don’t think Ted was making $8 million at the time but I remember it was a lot and that if he was willing to cut his salary in half (which would still be a lot) ABC could have hired a slew of minority interns.
You’re right! THEY’RE ALL IN IT TOGETHER!! THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THEIR OCTOPUS-LIKE CLUTCHES!! EVERYONE IS IN ON IT!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! AHHH-HA-HA-HA!! (Cut to Keven McCarthy running around on the highway in the last scene of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”)
I understand that “their” leader is some guy who looks like Orson Welles from the original version of “Casino Royale.” Come to think of it. That would be pretty neat.
cfbleachers: Judge Soros’s life from whatever point you prefer. Retain or cast out elements of his history as you wish. The man’s biography is one long dirty story.
By pure chance I happened to catch one instance where Beck was going on about Soros in adolescence. The sight of a well fed American whose worst experience in life was overcoming his addiction to alcohol in high moral dudgeon about what a prisoner did or did not do in a Nazi concentration camp was offputting to say the least.
I’ve known more than one scumbag with numbers tatooed on his arm. At my most vehement I would never consider bringing up the camps or the suggestion that someone having gone through the experience ought to be a better person. It simply isn’t something one brings up.
Chalk it up to a difference of aesthetics and culture and where you come from, cfbleachers. How many camp survivors do you know, good or bad?
But Soros was never in a camp.
He never saw the inside of a cattle car let alone a camp. He was on the protected side.
Yes, to preserve his life he would have kept quite but now in the “afterlife” it appears that he has learned nothing about being human even though he aspires to be godlike.
Just as we should not be picking on Charlie Rangel, because he is black and came out of a ghetto (not the one that was in Warsaw, Poland). Let’s forgive Charlie all his sins for his earlier years. Meanwhile George Soros is laughing at his defenders. Then again his defenders are leftists and want his donations to their causes.
There is a rather large difference between attempting to achieve absolute objectivity and claiming that you are attempting to minimize bias. The pundits and even journalists on Fox and MSNBC say that because the former is impossible, then the latter can be avoided. This is like saying that because illness and death–not to mention human error in the medical profession–is inevitable, doctors need not be held to any standard. Similarly, while it is true that diligent and honest journalists will fight over which facts are most relevant, our current problem has to do with hacks using that excuse to masquerade their opinions as facts.
And Ron Radosh does that in this very piece–ironically enough. For example, he points to two facts to discredit the belief that Peter Jennings attempted to be objective: first, he was insufficiently pro-Israel; second, he accepted the discredited ideas of Gar Alperovitz. But where are the facts? He makes an opinionated claim that Jennings is anti-Israel without evidence. This is exactly the kind of hack journalism and poor argumentation that Koppel would not stand for. He then goes further to claim that Alperovitz has been discredited when, in actuality, the support for his claims about the use of atomic bombs during WWII has been supported by the scholarship of a very large group of reputable scholars (e.g., Ernest May at Harvard). His factually incorrect opinion is masquerading as a fact, making his claim about Peter Jennings highly questionable.
Was Peter Jennings biased and fallible? Of course he was, but to the extent that he was paid for providing fact-based analysis with a large group of on-the-ground correspondents doing the same, all while operating in an era in which objectivity was still attempted, he was less likely and indeed did engage in this hack journalism far less often than what we witness today in an age in which there are no experts, everyone is equally biased and deceitful, ratings matter more than accuracy and consumers want to hear what they want to hear rather than what is factually true. That Radosh doesn’t even notice that Fox “News” does not even run news programs during its network’s primetime but puts up a series of opinion shows for those most-watched hours, this alone highlights how off-base his comparison is to the news of the 50s or 60s.
The sad irony is that having more choices of news and better technology ought to have helped the quality of the news product. But it has not. Corporate influence takes many subjects increasingly off the table as legitimate, while human beings’ inherent desire to avoid discomforting stories (i.e., those that highlight where they need to change their assumptions and tightly-held beliefs–which is always difficult) causes them to self-select only the media outlets taht tell them what they want to hear (class confirmation bias behavior). The end result? A reduction in the quality of reporting and depth of knowledge imparted.
Aristotle noted that virtue came from habit and required hard work. A virtuous fourth estate, which even our founding fathers clearly recognized was necessary for our democracy, requires forcing people to hear what they may not want to hear. The best universities are not run by the most socially active fraternaties on their campus. Similarly, the news ought not be determined by the masses that would be prefer to watch American Idol. While the gate keepers of our universities are far from perfect, we generally recognize that their human failings and biases are to be preferred to non-experts or rabble-rousers setting the curriculum instead. It is too bad that the news media has failed to uphold similar standards. While Ron Radosh would be heavily attacked by the universities and academy for making ridiculous statements about Alperovitz, he is free to comment in the media about it as though he is some kind of expert. This is, in my opinion, a sad and dangerous state of affairs.
“…requires forcing people…”
Another crass totalitarian checks in with its enlightened concept of required force –
“…requires forcing people to hear what they may not want to hear.”
Sure. “This is, in my opinion, a sad and dangerous state of affairs.” Agreed.
“…requires forcing people…” “…requires…” “…forcing people…”
It must follow that abc has that special knowledge as to the amount and type of required force to be applied to “the masses”.
So what will it be, woodchippers and acid baths at 7pm, with grim abcs presiding? Or just a beer or two? Where does required force logically begin and end? Oh, I don’t know. I just know. Because I bow to others who form my correct views, and they know. So I know.
Some bow to no one.
Then the naked elitist contradiction plucked from a mind that quite obviously has participated in the American Idol Sin, but has the assumed disdain to assume that it is self protected from any contamination.
“Similarly, the news ought not be determined by the masses that would be prefer to watch American Idol.”
Indeed, American Idol Sin and intelligence can be mutually exclusive.
A virtuous fourth estate, which even our founding fathers clearly recognized was necessary for our democracy, requires forcing people to hear what they may not want to hear.
*sigh* Where to begin? Abc, you need to read a little bit of history. Only in the 20th Century was there any attempt to have a “virtuous fourth estate.” Newspapers throughout American history have had a point of view, and have argued it. “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war,” anyone? William Randolph Hearst was far from the first newspaperman to do this sort of thing and certainly was not the last.
There is even a convincing argument to be made that the nationwide coverage and yellow journalism of said coverage of “Bleeding Kansas,” in the 1850s was one of the proximate causes of the Civil War.
The fourth estate is necessary, yes, but as a member I can tell you none of us are unbiased, and it’s only the lefty members of the press who even try to claim we are.
Those of us of a more thoughtful bent, (and actually thinking is something J schools try like hell to beat out of you,) realize that all we can do is try to be as fair to our subjects as possible, and try to minimize what our own biases bring to the story.
This is why responsible journalists (yes there is such a thing, no most of the MSM is not it) make sure we have multiple sources from multiple points of view on every story — even a little league baseball game.
This profession brings with it huge responsibility, something most of my colleagues have forgotten or never knew. Koppel knew it, he just never cared.
Patrick
“That Radosh doesn’t even notice that Fox “News” does not even run news programs during its network’s primetime but puts up a series of opinion shows for those most-watched hours, this alone highlights how off-base his comparison is to the news of the 50s or 60s.”
Those “opinion shows” happen to be based on the news. And FOX, as Mr. Lucky previously pointed out, being a savvy commercial enterprise, realizes that 24 hour news is not profitable. Whether you believe it or not, all news networks and distributors are in the business of making a profit. Profit is such a nasty word.
Re Soros. Beck should have identified the context of Soros saying he wanted to undermine government.He was speaking of Warsaw Pact countries. But there is no doubt Soros wants to undermine the USA.
As for Beck’s holocaust statements, they are accurate. Here is a partial transcript, in Soros own words.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/george-soros-on-helping-the-nazis-during-the-holocaust
Soros is clearly a psychopath.
Mr. Koppel fails to mention the networks’ abdication of impartiality in political coverage. Need we mention Rathergate; the non-coverage of the John Edwards story; and the disgraceful treatment of Hilary Clinton during the primaries when it became apparent that Obama’s candidacy was the better story?
Sanctimony was the call back in the day when Ted Koppel was being a “real” journalist. That boy could brew up a pot of sanctimony with the best of ‘em . . . well, almost all of them.
But the king of sanctimony, the most sanctimonious jerk of all . . . and in my entirely unbisaed opinion, the most biased . . . was Daniel Schoor. The very sight of the haggard look on that guy’s face, coupled with his usually ragged-looking raincoat — even in a teaser for an upcoming segment — would begin to make you physically sick. He was all leftie agenda all the time.
Conversely, my favorite network newsman was Sam Donalson. Sam would go after everyone, Republican & Democrat alike. And, he always had that quirky smile painted on his face. No sanctimony at all.
* * * *
By the way, 10. Dr. Lumplevin, you may recall when you were a kid, they’d say that if you continue making a funny face, one day it will stay that way. And then you’ll be sorry! I just hope for your sake, that it is not true in the case of one’s mind, vis-a-vis the comments one posts. Heh. Good one!
David Thompson: Self hating Jew is a problematic formulation, David. A Roman Catholic who thinks the Pope is an old fraud and the mass is mere mummery and the Church itself is a parasite on the poor (Orwell’s phrase) is not a self hating Catholic. He’s an unaffiliated Christian or atheist who detests Catholicism.
Neither Soros nor my grandmother hated themselves. They were less than enamored of their fellow Jews to whom they imagined themselves superior.
Soros isn’t overtly obsessed with Jews. J-Street is merely one more lefty cause he supports. Soros imagines himself a citizen of the world, deracinated and absent ethnicity. He’s above such smallmindedness. Moreover he sees himself as an idealist bent on doing good.
Before the phrase went mainstream, self-hating Jews referred to Jews who wore their Judaism like an invisible dirty cloak. People who had internalized Jew-hatred and adopted its standards.
Self hating Jews are deeply twisted people who obsess on Jewish failings no differently than a Gentile anti-Semite who sees Jews in his soup. Robert Novak, the recently deceased and much admired conservative columnist was a truly sick, self-hating Jew. George Soros is not.
In any event, neither Soros nor all the self-hating Jews in the world do as much damage to Jews and Judaism as the nice, ordinary, everyday Jews who get into a voting booth and vote like Puerto Ricans.
Koppel appears to be hanging on by his fingernails to the old days when he and a few elite buddies got to tell everyone how to think. Wake up Ted. Through the internet and cable tv, people can share ideas and opinions, and check facts for themselves. You no longer control and spin the news. Your elite bubble has popped. Enjoy your retirement.
Sure, Herr Koppel, we absolutely should bring back the heady days when you and Ted Jennings and Carl Woodward and Dan Cronkite and Walter Clift and Peter Russert and Bob Bernstein so reliably pontificated on whatever the Goebbels School of Confusing Narcissism with Talent and Ideology with Truth and such of its Ben Riefenstahls, Leni Grahams, Viet Bradlees and Katherine Harlans had settled on as the acceptably un-and-anti-American face of the day’s indoctrinations?
Just the Facts Ma’ma
As Joe Friday would have said today … just give me the facts and let me form my own opinion. Or, i guess especially in the case of Mr. Radosh who implies he “chooses which facts to emphasize”, give me all of the facts. If you are reporting the news, do not try to influence my opinion with yours. It seems to me that too many news reporters now view their jobs as providing editorial opinions and not reporting the facts.