The Seizing of 11:30 P.M.
DORFMAN, HERBERT
The Seizing of 11:30 P.M. Nightline: History in the Making and the Making of Television By Ted Koppel and Kyle Gibson Times Books. 478pp. $25.00. Reviewed by Herbert Dorfman Television writer,...
...Few others who ply his craft are willing to let themselves be caught off guard by what they are about to hear...
...Koppel, who knew little about the sport, asked why there were so few black managers and executives...
...At first it aired intermittently, then fairly regularly...
...He was right...
...Maybe, but they certainly try...
...One evening early on, for example, when a researcher handed him a list of suggested questions, he glared and said: "Do not ever, ever, give me questions...
...Although their joint declaration should have been the end of the story, she concluded, "I don't have enough faith in the press to believe that it's going to be...
...Night-line is used all the time," Koppel told his staff...
...Dogmeat" was how he described himself after going head-to-head with Democratic Party adviser Mandy Grunwald in 1992...
...He knew he was not "the natural choice" envisaged by Arledge after the higher network powers finally agreed to permanently fill the late-night slot with a broad-scoped news show...
...Campanis finally resorted to the phrase that soon cost him his job: "I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities...
...Late in the 1988 Presidential campaign, because he was not hearing anything of substance during an interview with Michael Dukakis, Koppel interjected: "With all due respect, let me suggest to you, I still don't think you get it...
...who had known and worked with the major leagues' first black player...
...Grunwald drove in a final nail by recalling how Bill and Hillary had conceded "they haven't had a perfect marriage," but had asserted "they've put that marriage back together and that their commitment is to each other and to this campaign and to the country...
...Clinton was unavailable, so he had sent her as a surrogate...
...Who knows...
...Probably because it is still hard to say, from day to day, exactly what Nightline is—and because there's only one Ted Koppel...
...A producer said to her as she departed, "Nobody does that to Ted...
...When anchor Frank Reynolds left America Held Hostage that December, Koppel, ABC's senior diplomatic correspondent, was drafted as his "temporary" replacement...
...And what makes it work, we increasingly recognize as we read, is Ted Kop-pel's no-nonsense disposition and direct control...
...certainly, no politician ever did...
...Nightline brought on Los Angeles Dodgers official Al Cam-panis...
...At best, Koppel figured, he was at the bottom of a list containing names like Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Roger Mudd...
...Still, his method has consciously retained the element of spontaneity that separates him from the rest of TV's inquirers...
...They have real concerns...
...So when Nightline premiered on March 24, 1980 he was in the chair...
...It wasn't...
...Nightline did its part for over a year?with hardly a week going by in which one or more nights was not spent discussing the overly-discussed trial...
...But the eponymously titled volume, written mainly in the third person, reveals little about Koppel the man...
...Then he stormed out of his office, slammed the door so hard the walls shook, and disappeared for two hours...
...Koppel's surprise at an answer is genuine, and that makes our surprise and interest all the greater...
...local news for over 40 "instant specials...
...Moreover, the book goes on to note, "That fact never bothered Koppel, because it was also true that he never tackled a broadcast without an agenda of his own...
...Technology has of course enabled Night-line to cover breaking events and the people shaping them in every corner of the world...
...This was the seizing of 11:30...
...Why should you be preaching anything...
...Journalism was only part of it," the authors observe...
...You have put me on the defensive," he admitted to Grunwald and the millions in the viewing audience...
...The book is subtitled "History in the Making and the Making of Television...
...Remarkably American television, always quick to try to imitate a success, has not come up with a Nightline clone...
...Since assuming his post two years earlier, he had "borrowed" time from the network following the 11 p.m...
...His idea from the outset was to let things flow naturally, which also meant "he'd better be listening and not looking at notes...
...Johnny Carson was the king of late night TV, but Arledge thought there was "an audience Carson wasn't reaching...
...Although few popular programs depend as much on the skill and personal appeal of one individual, mostly we are served up healthy excerpts from actual shows and plenty of material from the other side of the camera...
...A third factor was being in the right place at the right moment...
...In the summer of 1994, like every news show of every sort, Nightline began reporting on the O.J...
...But at least he writes about it...
...He was definitely listening when the program marked the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's joining the then Brooklyn Dodgers...
...In the wake of the headlines that followed, the major leagues were forced to speak openly about their vestigial racism...
...Reviewed by Herbert Dorfman Television writer, producer THE WAY Ted Koppel—or, more accurately, Kyle Gibson—tells it, he and TV's Nightline owe their intertwined reputations to "an extraordinary convergence of factors...
...When he heard it he "dropped his voice to the icy-cold tone, low and ominous, that he used to convey both disgust and stubbornness...
...Koppel's not wanting to do a show about the death of comedian John Belu-shi is in the book...
...We become privy to the Sturm und Drang over how to handle sensitive subjects...
...He hated the idea...
...If it was done against his better judgment, wouldn't this book be the place to inform us...
...Yet while face-to-face interviews, conversations and exchanges over the global satellite system, live reports from remote areas, and the use of small Hi8 cameras to produce pictures in tight places are all excellent techniques, they are neither revolutionary nor necessarily original...
...It figured to be a feel-good interview...
...Nothing about the trial, its racial implications or the media circus Nightline participated in...
...And the cumulative impact...
...The program is unique because it has pioneered an open style that is exciting when it works...
...Indistinguishable from any other news show...
...Sixteen years and 4,000 broadcasts later, Koppel and his former producer remind us in this book of Nightline's many high points and have fun acknowledging its blunders...
...Every broadcast, after all, is a collaborative effort," he says in the first-person Introduction...
...The producer's tally: "Koppel 9, Dukakis 0." Occasionally he is the one who emerges from an evening battered and bruised...
...We hear of the struggle to keep the show objective...
...An entire chapter is devoted to "Shows We Wish You Had Never Seen...
...That, it is said, "triggered a ravenous appetite for more information"?something not easily satisfied in the era preceding 24-hour news channels...
...A second and key factor was the secret agenda of ABC News President Roone Arledge, who saw in the Iranian crisis an opportunity to expand his department...
...There is not a single word about it in these pages...
...Simpson affair...
...What does Koppel think about his massive treatment of the Simpson story...
...It is no secret that Arledge had ordered blanket coverage...
...Nevertheless, as the person doing Hostage while the multimillion-dollar haggling was going on, he had an advantage and he made the most of it...
...He was simply going where the conversation led, but "Dukakis was turning into a punching bag...
...To this day Koppel insists that story was not Nightline-worthy...
...With few exceptions, Koppel declares in one of many interspersed comments that are italicized to indicate they are his, "I approach almost every guest as if, until midnight, we are on equal footing...
...Now, on November 8, 1979, he launched America Held Hostage...
...She set Koppel back on his heels...
...Thinking to himself, "he doesn't really mean that',' Koppel offered him a chance to clarify his statement...
...Aside from Iran, and perhaps the Gulf crisis, it is doubtful that any subject received as much attention in Nightline's first 4.000 nights...
...She came in swinging, attacking Koppel for focusing on the tawdry Gennifer Flowers tale instead of on issues of consequence: "People are about to go out there and vote...
...One was the taking of American hostages in Teheran on November 4, 1979...
...And you're choosing with your editorial comment [to make] this program about some unsubstantiated charges that started with a trashy supermarket tabloid...
...Another night Koppel responded with revulsion to the flippant and evasive remarks of television evangelist Jim Bak-ker, asking: "What kind of a role model do you think you are...
...The book, too, has a surprise for us, but of a very different order...
...This is not merely typical of the morning news shows, it is true for heavyweight interrogators like Mike Wallace...
...Public figures agree to appear when they feel it will benefit them in some way: "No one came on Nightline because of altruism...
...Campanis implied the reason was that blacks did not want to pay their dues by going from the ballfield, where they did so well financially, to climbing the managerial ladder...
...Not only are they armed with carefully prepared questions, they are sometimes supplied with the answers...
Vol. 79 • June 1996 • No. 3
