Ted Koppel is an immensely famous American broadcast journalist. He is best known for being the anchorman for "Nightline", a world famous hard-news program. He was born in February 8, 1940 in Lancashire, England, as Edward James Koppel. He was born in a German Jewish emigrant family and they immigrated to the states when Ted was 13. Koppel graduated from Syracuse University with a Science degree and from Stanford University with a Master of Arts Degree in Mass Communications Research. Ted and his wife, Grace Anne, whom he married in 1963, have four children. There were rumors of his return to
ABC News as an anchorman in January 2010, however,
ABC couldn't reach an agreement with the now 70 year old journalism veteran, and he currently works as a news analyst for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
He started working as a teacher, but was then hired by the WMCA Radio, from where he moved to the
ABC Radio News. He was a war correspondent during the Vietnam War in 1966 and returned only in 1968, where he covered Nixon's election campaign. In these years, Koppel formed a friendship with Henry Kissinger, the most famous Secretary of State of the United States. With his correspondence missions, he had established himself as one of the best reporters
ABC had.
"Nightline" started with
ABC covering the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, which lasted for 444 days and transformed into the show we all know today. "Nightline" was the pioneering news program and was among the first
news programs that were featuring clips from the former Soviet Union. The show was so famous mostly because the casters introduced many important persons to the average viewer. For example, Yassar Arafat was featured on "Nightline" in 1982, but the aforementioned Kissinger was among the most celebrated guests in "Nightline".
After Koppel resigned in 2005, mostly because of the failing ratings and Ted's unwillingness to change the format of the show, he began working at Discovery Channel where he, together with former co-associate, "Nightline"'s executive producer Tom Bettag, worked at the Koppel show, which featured documentaries on the nature of China and reports on Iran. Discovery and Koppel broke the three year contract in 2008, six months before it ended, because apparently the viewers didn't want news.
Ted Koppel is one of the few idealistic journalists left today. When taking a brief glimpse at his biography, you can see that his career wasn't built only by hard work; his numerous acquaintances helped him break through, and the ever friendly attitude he possessed, helped him through the 25 years of "Nightline". Although Ted was criticized for "always being on the government's side", Ted Koppel was one of the few who didn't endure the temptation of the so called 'mixed news', and focused mostly on things that were important, not for the viewers, but for the world, thus preserving classic journalism ideals in the times when television and other traditional media is taking more and more beatings from the internet.
