Off Camera, Private Thoughts Made Public by Ted Koppel
Alfred Knopf, $38.00, 320 pages.
Ted Koppel is anything except just a pretty face on television. In the more than 20 years he has been the anchor of ABC TV’s ‘Nightline,’ his talents have earned him nearly every significant media award, including 32 Emmys, six Peabodys, and nine Overseas Press Club awards.
His latest book shows why Koppel is insightful, analytical and astute as a television journalist. But the book, a chronicle of the year 1999, shows a side of Koppel the TV cameras miss: a deep thinker, a sensitive and loving family man, an historian, a hard worker, a risk taker, and above all, someone with an enlightened opinion. His first book, In the National Interest, was written with Marvin Kalb, formerly a CBS reporter.
Koppel wrote Off Camera, Private Thoughts made Public as a journalist’s daily journal, in which he makes surprisingly candid observations about the major daily news stories as the year unfolds: first U.S. President Clinton and the Lewinsky scandal, then the Senate impeachment hearings, the NATO bombing of Belgrade, the crash of John F. Kennedy Jr’s air plane, the school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, Regis Philbin’s success on “Millionaire” and the beginning of the presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
Koppel has been an employee of ABC News for 37 years. When he admits he has moments of doubt that the network, or the news media as a whole, is covering a story the way it ought to be, it is refreshing and reassuring. He admits the major players in the news media don’t always get the right angle on the story at first. He says the news media often end up covering a fairly insignificant story for fear of being ‘scooped’ by their competitors or because ratings rank over quality programming. It is reassuring to hear this from Koppel because it confirms a sentiment shared by many viewers.
Koppel’s observations and criticisms go beyond the double talk and propaganda that comes out of the U.S. State Department’s spin-meisters during a military intervention like the NATO bombing of Kosovo or the foibles of the White House. Koppel is an analytical thinker, always looking for a bigger cause-and-effect or a world-wide trend. The Balkans, he says, were the flash point for the first world war, and the situation there in 1999 has many similarities. On the domestic front, he says the grocer that places misleading advertising in a local store is typical of a societal pattern that extends all the way to President Clinton, who hid from a sexual dalliance behind legal circumlocutions and deliberately ambiguous mis-statements.
The reader gains an appreciation for Koppel as a hard worker, as he conveys the dedication he brings to his work and the love of chasing a good story. “We have been getting by on two or three hours of sleep a night,” he writes from Pristina during a July news-gathering trip. “The water isn’t working in the hotel, which means the toilets don’t flush and you can’t take a bath. It goes without saying that there’s no laundry service, so we’re also running out of fresh clothes. But this story is so gripping that none of us is complaining.”
He recounts how in September, he addressed a group of students at Notre Dame University in Indiana, telling them lessons he learned as a reporter. He told them “establish a set of guiding principles....emphasize honesty, fairness, decency. Skepticism is all right, but try to not to lapse into cynicism. Provide a voice to the powerless.”
Off Camera captures the thoughts and observations of one world class journalist, who proves he could never be branded as a stereotypical Ugly American. His world travels have allowed Koppel to see and write about what other parts of the world think about the United States. He is sensitive enough to realize the mighty U.S. does not have all the right answers for every world event and forthright enough to admit the powerful news media makes its share of mistakes too. Koppel, journalist and observer, has been around long enough to convincingly convey that honesty and integrity never go out of style.
Mike Gange teaches Media Studies and Journalism courses at Fredericton High School, New Brunswick, Canada.