A Time to Laugh, A Time to Learn Ted Koppel on Today's News
Veteran ABC newsman Ted Koppel was taking questions from a Hollywood Radio and Television Society audience when an earnest young reporter asked a question journalists have been asking for several years: What should I do when my editor wants me to pass off advertising as news?
"Quit," Koppel said. Some in the mostly executive audience tittered, but Koppel assured them he was serious. There are still organizations that respect straight journalism and don't try to blur the line between information, infotainment and advertising, he told the young woman. "If you start doing stories for sponsors, you'll never get out from under it," he said.
"Quality sells," said the 41-time Emmy winner. "It does in every other business. Why can't it in ours?"
Paradoxically, Koppel said, one of the best news shows on television -- 60 Minutes -- meant bad news for newspeople because it was the first news show to make money. Network executives for decades had accepted the idea that news divisions were loss leaders. But if 60 Minutes could improve CBS' bottom line, executives began to ask, why shouldn't other news shows?
The notion fueled the current trend toward news-as-entertainment, he said. And while he hoped that the trend could be reversed, Koppel wondered aloud if it was already too late. Studies show that young viewers these days tend to get their "news" from television's political satirists rather than from real news reports, he pointed out. And it's still not helping the networks hold on to an eroding youth demo.
"We have been alienating our older viewers by skewing to the young," he said -- a counterproductive tactic because older viewers have America's greatest share of the disposable income sought by advertisers.
"Objective reporting is, for the most part, not the sexiest thing in the world," he said. But while many of the most informative news shows are inherently dull, viewers need them -- to learn, not to laugh.
"I have no problem whatsoever with entertainers and comedians pretending to be journalists," he said. "My problem is with journalists pretending to be entertainers."
"If we set our sights high, who knows? We may find that there is a market for quality and integrity. It's a good bet."
- Larry Gerber