First Jon Stewart, now Ted Koppel

[JamesA1102]

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot moderator Democratic Underground)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111202857.html">Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news

By Ted Koppel

To witness Keith Olbermann - the most opinionated among MSNBC's left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money-generating hosts - suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates seemed like a whimsical, arcane holdover from a long-gone era of television journalism when the networks considered the collection and dissemination of substantive and unbiased news to be a public trust.

Back then, a policy against political contributions would have aimed to avoid even the appearance of partisanship. But today, when Olbermann draws more than 1 million like-minded viewers to his program every night precisely because he is avowedly, unabashedly and monotonously partisan, it is not clear what misdemeanor his donations constituted. Consistency?

We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.

The commercial success of both MSNBC and Fox News is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft-quoted observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.

Ted Koppel, who was managing editor of ABC's "Nightline" from 1980 to 2005, is a contributing analyst for "BBC World News America."

[eleny]

1. ~Ted "America Held Hostage" Koppel~

Get off the high horse, Ted. You helped fashion the night after night hyperbole mold.

[Drix]

2. That's the first thing I thought.

America Held Hostage...Day XXX. STFU Ted.

[Fumesucker]

4. Bingo.. n/t

[GrpCaptMandrake]

7. Amen!

Testify! It.Is.The.Truth

[eleny]

13. I want a witness!

[GrpCaptMandrake]

20. I'm witnessin'!

Hallelujah! Glory!

[JackRiddler]

14. America Held Hostage. That program was the most important turning point in TV propaganda.

[eleny]

17. Yup. And this editorial of TK's is a clear example of projection

[myrna minx]

24. No kidding.

:applause:

[JackRiddler]

27. Here's a little gloss on "America Held Hostage" I just dug up...

I'd like to call attention to two episodes in particular, both of which I consider effectively media psyops and transformative moments in US society and culture enacted through the broadcast media, though we can argue about the extent to which the origins of either involved planning as opposed to elements coming together organically; and also debate, once each got started, the degree of central orchestration involved in either as propaganda events. These two milestone TV productions were "America Held Hostage" and the O.J. Simpson case. Though the intensity of both faded long ago without much echo remaining today, both were gargantuan media frenzies and public moral panics in their time, and our aliens might find them important out of proportion to other events, based on the sheer TV time devoted to each over extended periods.

"America Held Hostage" ran as the primary US daily news coverage in both TV and print for almost all of the 444 days from the taking of the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979 until the release from Iran of the last 52 American hostages on January 20, 1981, in the hour after Ronald Reagan's inauguration.

Those of you who were watching at the time should recall that the US network nightly news programs during this period actually opened with the title, "America Held Hostage: Day XXX" (on ABC) or some variant of the same on the other networks. So the name is not something I'm attaching to the event myself, but the universal referent for it at the time.

I don't think the original storming of the embassy was the result of a prior covert operations plan (though it was predicted as a consequence of Carter's allowing the Shah into the United States for medical treatment), but the media production in the aftermath provided the moral banner for rallying that year's "Reagan Revolution" in the manner of a more traditional top-down propaganda campaign, and the affair's denouement was scripted in the "October Surprise" deal Casey and Bush cut with the Iranian government. At any rate, the sheer duration and prominence of the event and the primary staging as a TV-generated emergency were unprecedented, at least in degree and also in quality.

SNIP

And the man who made his career on this, more publicly than another, was Ted Koppel.

Imagine the corporate media had provided real investigative coverage of Iran-Contra, CIA-drugs, the Florida election theft while it was happening, the Iraq war lies while they were actually happening, the protests against the 2003 invasion before it happened, or the obvious facts of where the housing bubble was heading already in the 2004-2006 (Dean Baker laid it all out in easy to understand fashion already in 2004, and he wasn't the only one by a mile). Imagine there hadn't been Judy Miller and a hundred other "objective" carriers for the obvious lies peddled by the Bush regime to enable its principles had planned and intended years before their seizure of power in 2000. Imagine PNAC had been the story in 2002, instead of fictional uranium purchases. The corporate media of which Koppel is one of the biggest exemplars served as faithful transmission belts for the false narratives of the national security state and the dominant financial powers. And now Koppel discovers he's bothered by Olbermann?! (Obviously much more than by FOXNEWS, if you read how the article is laid out.)

.

[Fumesucker]

3. So where was all this concern when it was only Fox distorting and lying on the right?

We get that you are concerned, Ted, interesting that you only chose to voice that concern now that some on the left are speaking up and providing a counterweight to the vast army of media blitherers on the right.

[The Wielding Truth]

5. Yep. Well at least it brings some attention to the lies of FOX.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Notice former Rethug Congressman Joe Scarborough with his several hour show never gets mentioned?

Wonder why that is?

Don

[KharmaTrain]

8. Maybe...

...with the exception of a handful of people who must enjoy the self-abuse here, almost no one watches that morning waste of electrons. Ya gotta think Joey's ego must be hurtin'...just like he was in the House...a back-bencher.

[NNN0LHI]

9. If no one was watching him wouldn't he be canceled though?

Something must be keeping his viewership up?

Don

[KharmaTrain]

22. He's The Rainmaker...The Loss Leader

Note that he's on during the afternoon and I don't think his excrement is repeated during prime time. The big money is always in the evening...that's also where the ratings really matter. Dreck draws a lot of attention that fuels the rest of the media cycle...he'll start the chattering; e.g., the slime job on the lady taken out of context by O'Keefe and Breitbart. It was shown on Dreck first and by the evening it was all everyone else was talking...the ratings are up and Rupert takes it to the bank. The guy didn't make billions by pure luck. Consider Dreck the "Page Six"...the place people go for the dirt but no one advertises on...but they sure buy everything around it.

It's when he doesn't drive the controversy...doesn't get the attention that he will have served his purpose.

Cheers...

[GrpCaptMandrake]

11. IOKIYAR n/t

[stray cat]

10. A new evil doer for duers to demonize!

[Mike Nelson]

12. Somebofy P:EASE tell this fool who...

...defeated President Jimmy Carter with his "AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE"

[MagickMuffin]

15. Notice how he doesn't even address Nightline his old flagship

and what has become of it. It has become Entertainment Latenight.

Also, most of the MSNBC hosts state facts to discuss about what's in the news. Faux Noise not so much. They make up facts to suit their agenda.


Perhaps his rug is sitting to tightly upon his head.

[Puregonzo1188]

16. While he paints an overly rosy nostalgic picture of a golden-age of journalism that I don't

believe ever existed (Spanish American War anyone? And who can forget the first newspapers in the country were all partisan newspapers), I think he does have some valid criticisms of the corporate culture of the major networks and the cutting of overseas bureau, viewing news as a commercial venture, etc.

At the same time I think his dismay at Keith Olberman, like his nostalgia for the past, is totally misplaced.

[UTUSN]

18. koppel, REALLY?!1 "koppel" all in LOWER CASE. n/t

[pacalo]

19. Oh, Ted, so sorry you were canceled out by the establishment you mistakenly choose

to hold up as an example, apparently, of the news we should be watching instead of Keith.

As I seem to remember, at about the time when your style of news was taken off the air, I read an article about Keith's style being hailed as the new direction for news. And Keith is very successful these days; I wish things for you could be better.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

21. Sounds like Ted's working through some issues

now that he's irrelevant.

He seems to forget that it was HIS network (ABC, pre-mouse) that put a sports guy in charge of news because Roone Arledge had been so succesful in packaging sports as entertainment.

Now, he's moaning about the degradation of something he helped degrade. He's no longer a gatekeeper and he doesn't like it.

The very idea that Koppel sees MSNBC as the problem tells me all I need to know.

[Donnachaidh]

23. hey helmet-hair, Edward R. Murrow you NEVER were.

So go back to the home and enjoy your farina.

[Johonny]

25. The humor is that this piece is all opinion and not a fact

so Ted's just doing what he claims he dislikes. L O L. Does KO trump opinion over facts? IDK it would of been helpful for some type of analysis here to actually show that was true. Without it, it's shit fact less BS.

[rustydog]

26. Koppel is dead on right to see it any other way is pure partisan blindness

The man is speaking truth. America's news is becoming too partisan. Facts are not reported, beliefs and opinion are presented as facts and truth.

Is it any less insidious if the opinion (Not fact-based news) is being presented by the person whose beliefs mirror yours. Is your belief systemso weak you need to have it bolstered by someone else?

I have coworkers and very close friends who are conservative and we are FRIENDS. we work together, play together and get along civilly. It is the marketing of "news" for profit that clouds the issues and muddies the waters.
too many slogans and catch phrases. There is a time and place for this.

But, our main source of information from which we form our opinions and beliefs must NOT be partisan. It needs to be reported as fact. not opinion, not personal belief.

[woo me with science]

30. +1000

Thank you for a lone voice of reason in this thread.

[JackRiddler]

28. There's another Koppel thread suddenly but this one's better...

because "America Held Hostage" is THE story with this hypocrite.

[Skittles]

29. I agree with him

which is why I don't watch O'Reilly OR Olbermann