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In the early to mid-1980's I watched an episode of ABC's Nightline hosted by Ted Koppel. The topic was on the plausibility that there were still Americans being held captive or were held captive after the war in Vietnam. I don't remember who the guests on the program were. What I do remember is a black & white photo that the program showed. It was a photo of a half-dozen or so Caucasian-looking men standing together. They appeared to be wearing what could have old worn uniforms or work clothes. I believe on one corner or side of the photo...

That tall, amiable sheriff and his little boy, Opie, heading to a fishing hole on the outskirts of Mayberry, North Carolina, at the start of "The Andy Griffith Show," were actually strolling along a backlot in Culver City, California. Ron Howard, the actor who played Opie, is now one of Hollywood's top directors. Most of the other stars – Andy Griffith; Don Knotts, who played his deputy, Barney Fife; and the actors who played Aunt Bee and Floyd the Barber – they've all passed on. After all, it's been 53 years since the show was cancelled. snip ... Koppel asked...

we then have a period from early November until the 20th of January, that interregnum period, when Donald Trump is still president, but he knows that he only has a few months left to serve. How do you think that period will go?” . . According to the former Nightline anchor, not well. He imagined the scenario where “millions” of Republicans might resort to violence

In the late 1960s, when Ted Koppel covered the Vietnam War as ABC News’ war correspondent, he would ship his film by air back to the network’s New York studios, a journey that took two to three days. By 2003, when he began covering the Iraq War, Koppel could broadcast from the desert, bringing news to his viewers the same day it happened. Now, Koppel said Wednesday in a lecture at Trinity University, half the American public gets its news immediately on Facebook. “What social media does is give all of us the opportunity to say anything at any time...

In a report that aired on CBS’ “Sunday Morning” about the polarization of politics and the media in the Age of Trump, “Sunday Morning” special contributor Ted Koppel charged Fox News host Sean Hannity with contributing to the increased antipathy toward opposing viewpoints that is prevalent in America. Hannity made no qualms about presenting his own conservative agenda, but objected to Koppel characterizing his viewers as not being able to discriminate editorial content from news. “We have to give some credit to the American people that they’re somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and...

Found this premature parting shot at the Reagan years. Something to reference as the Obama years wind down. More info here: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?item=T87:0227 Featuring statements by Walter Mondale, William F. Buckley, Jr., Malcolm Forbes, Isaac Asimov, Ellen Goodman, Alvin Toffler, Patrick Buchanan, Edward Teller, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Steve Allen, Milton Friedman, Andrew Young, Carl Sagan, George Will, Betty Friedan, Jesse Jackson, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Charles Krauthammer, Theodore Hesburgh, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Mark Russell.

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...