Koppel Sees a Broader Horizon

Walter Cronkite earned a reputation as the most trusted man in America, but he left “The CBS Evening News” two decades ago. And though current occupants of the nightly anchor chairs possess their own merits, none of them--not loose cannon Dan Rather, dry-bordering-on-catatonic Tom Brokaw or ultra-smooth, Teflon-coated Peter Jennings--can fill those shoes.

No, if you want the most reliable voice in broadcast journalism, there’s a compelling case to be made for Ted Koppel, who began his stint as anchor of “Nightline”--ABC’s stately late-night showcase--shortly before Cronkite signed off. If it was the equivalent of a journalistic baton pass, no one recognized it at the time; still, Koppel’s tenure has consistently been marked by unwavering integrity; blunt, intelligent questioning; and the sort of dry wit and cutting humor that can prove particularly disarming when delivered in his measured cadence.

It’s noteworthy, then, to hear Koppel weigh in regarding the news media’s track record on a story and to label it sorely lacking, as he does in “Heart of Darkness,” ABC’s five-part series detailing the devastation that has occurred in the Congo region of Africa. The program begins Friday--one of six five-part series the newsman and his producer, Tom Bettag, are scheduled to generate each year complementing his scaled-back, three-night-a-week hosting duties on “Nightline.”

“When a football-hero-turned-movie-star was accused of murdering his wife, we told you about it, often, and in great detail,” Koppel says in introducing the series. Reporting on terrible stories, he continues, is “a necessary part of what journalists do. We recount for you greater and lesser tragedies, especially when they’re close to home. Often, we report these stories at length and in great detail because it’s clear that you want to know about them. Less frequently, we report on events because of our conviction that you ought to know.”

Regarding the estimated 2.5 million people who have died in the Congo in a three-year span, Koppel states that broadcasters have reason to be “ashamed of our indifference.” By failing to cover the story--which he attributes to distance, danger and money in one category, and an element of racism, subtle or otherwise, regarding who was dying in another--”We let you down. These are events that you should have heard about on ‘Nightline’ years ago.”

Koppel has never been bashful about addressing the realities of television news and its shortcomings. He is happy to “pay the bills,” as he has said in the past, by giving time to stories likely to garner big ratings, freeing the program to pursue matters of a loftier nature. He said he felt no embarrassment, for example, in piggybacking on Connie Chung’s exclusive “PrimeTime Thursday” interview with Rep. Gary Condit. In that respect, “Nightline” holds its own ratings-wise, trailing Jay Leno but regularly surpassing David Letterman’s CBS talk show in their common half-hour, averaging about 4.4 million viewers nightly.

“I’ve always been a realist about this business,” Koppel, 61, said in an interview from Washington, D.C. “If nobody watches what we do, if the ratings dry up ... the advertisers will go away, and it won’t be long before the network says, ‘Sorry, Ted, we’re going to put a comedy show in there.”’

That said, Koppel sees industry-wide negligence in the area of international news, as the corporate behemoths that own television news operations increasingly fret about costs while their all-news cable channels harp endlessly on the latest scandal du jour. “We have convinced ourselves ... that the American public doesn’t care about foreign news,” Koppel said. “It’s so convenient for the industry right now to say the American public doesn’t care. That way, we can cover Congressman Condit 24 hours a day. It’s easy, it’s cheap, and people do seem to be watching.”

Koppel acknowledged that the television news landscape has changed--that the emergence of the 24-hour channels altered “Nightline’s” role as the last gasp for news on the TV dial, examining the big story of the day. Yet this strange new world, he suggested, brings with it new opportunities.

“I think it gives us an opening to do what [the cable networks] aren’t doing very much, and that is to cover issues, not breaking stories,” Koppel noted, adding that he and Bettag are “both at the point in our careers where we can say, ‘Well, maybe nobody else is doing it, that’s what we should be doing right now.”’

Foreign bureaus, Koppel added, were once major contributors to nightly newscasts, behind only what emanated from Washington. Both he and Jennings cut their teeth in such bureaus, many of which have been closed (though less so at ABC than elsewhere, he points out) as part of a cost-cutting mandate. “That sound you hear is the thumping of doors in foreign bureaus around the world,” Koppel lamented.

In Koppel’s eyes, the networks are being shortsighted in this retrenchment, especially at a time when they increasingly have access to new channels and distribution systems through which to disseminate news. ABC parent Disney, for example, with its acquisition of the Fox Family Channel, will have another outlet that could provide news programs, just as digital platforms promise to greatly expand channel capacity.

Koppel is equally skeptical, and rightfully so, about the notion of ABC or CBS forming a cooperative venture with CNN to reduce news-gathering overhead--conversations that reflect another sign of cost-consciousness. Though any such combination would further consolidate decision-making, Koppel conceded he would be more comfortable with such discussions if it were clear ABC News would be the surviving, controlling entity under any such an arrangement.

Notably, “Heart of Darkness” will be followed beginning Sept. 28 by another five-part series, “A Matter of Choice?,” on the more domestic and perhaps viewer-friendly topic of gay life in America. Though the title has already drawn criticism from some gay activists, Koppel maintains the series’ goal is to examine a seldom-reported-on side of gay life, without the usual emphasis on such headline-grabbing matters as hate crimes, AIDS and gay-pride parades.

Though Koppel professes to be a realist, when it’s suggested the gay series could “pay the bills,” to borrow his phrase, for the Congo project, he expressed optimism that tune-in for the latter will justify the considerable expense of the series, which ran up a bill of more than $40,000 just booking charter flights for Koppel and his crew. If so, Koppel will be partly vindicated in his assertion that news executives have underestimated the U.S. public’s appetite to know what’s happening beyond its borders.

“I’m really fascinated to see what happens with the Congo series,” he said. “We’ve tried to make it as accessible as we can.”

Koppel signed a new five-year contract with ABC News in December, so he will remain accessible to those who have come to view him and “Nightline” as a reassuring presence--a dignified place to end a long day too frequently filled by media accounts full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Whether Koppel’s restrained voice can be heard quite as well or loudly above that din, there’s no doubting the night, and television news, would be a poorer place without it.

And that, with apologies to Cronkite, is the way it is.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached via email at brian.lowry@latimes.com.