On Ted Koppel

It was 1979 and America was held hostage, at home and abroad. In Iran, it was the Iranians, keeping captive the occupants of the U.S. embassy there. And in America, it was Johnny Carson, forcing you to either yuk it up with him in late night or turn off the tube, even on those nights when there was little to yuk it up about. Someone had to free Americans to be serious and well-informed, even at bedtime. That’s where ABC News came in, and they brought Ted Koppel along with them.

Originally, Nightline was just supposed to be a miniseries devoted to the hostage crisis, reality TV at its most extreme and serious. But young Ted Koppel, then ABC’s correspondent at the State Department, did such an effective job with “The Iran Crisis—America Held Hostage: Day [Fill in the Blank],” that ABC decided to allow him to make a permanent safe haven for all those who wanted to escape from Johnny and Ed and the canned celebration of everything ephemeral. Roone Arledge, the president of ABC News, is the one whose idea it was. In his 2003 memoir Roone, published shortly before his death, he gave the good reasons why Koppel was the man for the job:

“He had the ability to cut through obfuscation without being obnoxious; he was sharp but polite, opinionated but not doctrinaire. He was also spooky smart and wasn’t bashful about saying so, but he wore his cockiness well. He also knew how to ingratiate himself with others—I was the only person he’d ever known, he would say more than once, who was smarter than he was—and the fun he poked at himself was part of the same trick. You found yourself not only admiring Ted Koppel, he made you like him, too. And that perhaps was his most formidable ability.”

In 2005, with his very last “Closing Thought,” he was as likable as ever, allowing for the record that the guy who reads the news isn’t really as indispensable as too many people make him out to be: “Trust me, the transition from one anchor to another is not that big a deal. Cronkite begat Rather, Chancellor begat Brokaw, Reynolds begat Jennings. And each of them did a pretty fair job in his own right. You’ve always been very nice to me, so give this new anchor team for Nightline a fair break. If you don’t, I promise you the network will just put another comedy show in this time slot. Then you’ll be sorry. And that’s our report for tonight. I’m Ted Koppel in Washington and from all of us here at ABC News, good night.”