[FlyVet]

"Alright you stupid little people. We'll tell you what's important and what isn't. You just shut up and listen." Ted still doesn't get it.

[DainBramage]

The television journalists should be telling people the TRUTH about the news, not what they think is important!

[GadareneDemoniac]

Cronkite, Rather, Koppel -- don't these people know what RETIRE means? It means that you move to Florida, wear shorts and wing-tip shoes with black socks, yell at kids to get off your lawn -- and SHUT THE H*** UP!!!

The exagerated sense of self-importance of these people is galling.

[SandRat]

I somehow think it fitting that Ted "Whopper" Koppel is working for the DNC-Slimes.

[hosepipe]

Koppel = Propaganda CRITIC.. he decides whether its "good" propaganda or not so "good" propaganda.. What was his name Ed.. Ed Koppel..

We are not so easily fooled Ed..

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

But his view is that journalists "should be telling their viewers what is important, not the other way around."

so we agree....the Swift Boat Veteran's for Truth press conference this week is not important election year news and shouldn't be covered.....but Bush's fake TANG records from 1973 are...

[Wolfstar]

"I cannot help but see that the industry in which I have spent my entire adult life is in decline and in distress."

Some gig if you can get it. Koppel is getting big bucks to state the obvious.

[Pharmboy]

Once again the Annointed show how they are incapable of seeing beyond their own arrogance and self-importance. Hey Ted: just STFU so we won't know what an idiot your are--with a totalitarian mindset.

[clintonh8r]

I've been lost since Ted hasn't been around to tell me what's important.....

[Tall_Texan]

"And now, ABC World News Tonight, sponsored by Metamucil and Depends..."

[Zeppo]

though not so insensible as to be unmoved by the blandishments of sponsors

Leave it to Ted to use a ten-dollar word such as "blandishments" when a more common one would have been more appropriate. Guess that Ted needs to prove to all of the snobs and elitists in the Times Select audience that he is one of them...

[Buffettfan]

[[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."]]

What this Alfred E Neuman look alike is saying is that he is pi$$ed because the oldstream media has finally been exposed as the democratic house organ that they have been for the last 50 years and that they are being called on the carpet for it. I will never forget how this fruitcake sucked up to a communist vietnamese farmer and attacked John O'Neil during the Swiftvet interview. I wanted to puke.

Semper Fi'
Jarhead

[Starboard]

"I cannot help but see that the industry in which I have spent my entire adult life is in decline and in distress."

That's the only thing he got right. He and his elitist pals in the media are the reason why the industry is in decline.

[RJL]

Ted Koppel Pens First Piece as 'NY Times' Columnist--Comes Out Swinging

The short version: Ted misses the old monopoly the hard left had on journalism.

[bray]

An extinct Dinosaur telling Mammels how to survive!

Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters

[Clay Moore]

"I cannot help but see that the industry in which I have spent my entire adult life is in decline and in distress."

Yeah Ted, because of you and your ilk! One of the big things that wiped out communism was when the common folk were able to get news about what was really going on instead of the fiction the news-readers told them. Thank Algore for inventing the Internet and thus removing your fecal stain from the airways.

[Arrowhead1952]

"Indeed, in television news these days, the programs are being shaped to attract BRAINWASH, most particularly, 18-to-34-year-old viewers. They, in turn, are presumed to be partly brain-dead — though not so insensible as to be unmoved by the blandishments of sponsors.

How stupid does Ted Koppel think Americans are and what they think about his P&M sessions?

[OESY]

The logical flaw in Koppel's argument is that the Old Media would not be in a precipitous decline if they gave their audience what it wants.

Instead, Old Media reporters and pundits like Koppel play to their "audience" of company co-workers, pretending to be great propagandists of the past.

Their mission is never perceived to be to report the news but rather to craft a phrase, taint an opponent or omit a fact that will manipulate the public into embracing their left-wing world, company profits be damned.

[McGavin999]

"The accusation that television news has a political agenda misses the point. Right now, the main agenda is to give people what they want. It is not partisanship but profitability that shapes what you see."

Ah, now I understand. The reason the news is losing viewership is NOT because of partisanship but it's because of profitability. How does that work? I mean, if you are only interested in profitability and giving people what they want, why are you losing viewers?

[AustinBill]

The goal for the traditional broadcast networks now "is to identify those segments of the audience considered most desirable by the advertising community and then to cater to them," Koppel writes.

Here, in a nutshell, is the broadcaster's dilemma. In all traditional media the customer is the advertiser, not the viewer/reader. The viewer is simply the product being sold to the advertiser, which is why the broadcaster's only interest in the viewer is in being able to aggregate and package them for sale in largest numbers and in the most desired "demographics". "News", "entertainment", "sports", etc., simply category designators whose content (apart from the ability to attract viewership) is basically irrelevant. The business is sorting and packaging "eyeballs" for sale to advertisers. This business model is so engrained, so much part of the air traditional media breathes, that they cannot imagine any other business model.

This business model no longer works, which is why all traditional media is dying. Some are dying faster (e.g., newspapers) but they're all heading for the same business graveyard.

They will not be mourned.