Still No Contract as Koppel Takes ‘Nightline’ to Israel

ABC’s Ted Koppel, still negotiating a new contract but refusing to talk about it, tonight starts a week of live, longer-than-usual “Nightline” broadcasts from Israel.

The Israel visit by “Nightline” is its fourth overseas trip since the program began in March, 1980, during the Iranian hostage crisis.

Why this expedition?

“The question answers itself,” said Koppel, who previously went with the program to South Africa and Vietnam in 1985, and to Manila the next year during the overthrow of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.

“The Middle East is always one of the most volatile places in the world, a place of crucial strategic interest and high emotional interest to people, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews,” the anchorman declared.

And considering the recent turmoil there, he said, “this just seems an appropriate time to go over and take a longer and more thoughtful look at what’s going on.”

Barring unforeseen developments, he’ll start tonight (11:30 p.m., Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42) with separate interviews of Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and an official of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, ABC says.

On Tuesday, he’ll moderate a marathon “Town Meeting” of about 600 Palestinians and Jews in Jerusalem, with ordinary citizens and officials from each side taking part. It’s expected to last almost three hours and will cover a wide range of issues that for years have caused conflict in Israel and in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank, where violent unrest has caused the deaths of 152 Palestinians and two Israelis since early December.

This week’s broadcasts involve 30 ABC News staffers, ranging from media critic Jeff Greenfield to ABC News President Roone Arledge, who will be in Israel but said he won’t appear on the programs.

Koppel & Co. will be working morning-show hours. Because of the time difference between here and Jerusalem, American late-night viewers actually will be watching live broadcasts that start at 6:30 a.m. in Israel. (Portions of the “Nightline” programs will be taped by Israeli TV for same-day broadcast, probably in prime time, ABC says.)

Koppel was asked about the criticism from many Jews in Israel and the United States that the American TV networks’ coverage of the violence in the occupied territories often tells only one side of a complex story.

“Well, I respond by saying this kind of trip ought to satisfy a lot of that criticism,” Koppel said in a phone interview from Washington a few days before leaving for Israel.

“The criticism, as I understand it, suggests not--at least among the more thoughtful people--that there should not be coverage, but that the coverage does not have proper context and perspective.

“And what we can do in the course of seven or eight or even nine hours of live programming is to provide a lot more context and perspective than people would normally get on a television news program.”

Now 48, Koppel has been with ABC News for 25 years, in journalistic capacities ranging from Vietnam reporter to chief diplomatic correspondent for nearly nine years.

He is the holder of two Peabody Awards, two George Polk Awards and 10 Emmy Awards and has been acclaimed for his crisp, authoritative interviews on “Nightline.” But he has been working without a contract since December.

ABC News chief Arledge said in an interview that there has been general agreement on a new contract, but that he couldn’t go into specifics about it “because I’ll get into areas that really haven’t been agreed to.”

However, he said, under the proposed new contract, “Ted will be doing some specials for us. The main thing is, he’ll continue on ‘Nightline’ in the same capacity as now, and under the same ground rules.”

By that, he explained, the program still will be produced by ABC News. As for reports that Koppel might be permitted to form his own production company, Arledge said that “isn’t finalized yet.”

(ABC News’ Barbara Walters already has a production company that makes her prime-time interview specials. But that is under a separate agreement with ABC Entertainment, which pays half her $1-million-plus annual salary.)

Koppel’s company reportedly would produce at least four prime-time news specials annually for ABC News. According to one network source, he also would be allowed to produce programs for outlets other than ABC; however, they couldn’t be sold to rival CBS or NBC.

Were Koppel to produce non-ABC programs, that would be “very limited,” Arledge said, and such programs would probably be for public television, perhaps under an arrangement similar to one in which “World News Tonight” anchor Peter Jennings occasionally has appeared on PBS programs.