Ted Koppel makes debut as NYT columnist; we all pass out from boredom

Well, with Frank Rich on book leave we have the debut of Ted Koppel as an occasional contributor to the NYT op-ed page (TimesSelect).

He has written on the state of television network news and the relationship between the networks and their viewers. The crux of his argument is in these two paragraphs:

Most television news programs are ... designed to satisfy the perceived appetites of our audiences. That may be not only acceptable but unavoidable in entertainment; in news, however, it is the journalists who should be telling their viewers what is important, not the other way around.

Indeed, in television news these days, the programs are being shaped to attract, most particularly, 18-to-34-year-old viewers. They, in turn, are presumed to be partly brain-dead — though not so insensible as to be unmoved by the blandishments of sponsors.

He notes that in the old days -- prior to the era of deregulation that extended its reach to the television networks -- owners nurtured their news divisions for fear that the government would step in or, at the extreme, revoke their licenses (This argument was fleshed out a bit more in a recent New Yorker piece by Nicholas Lemann on the legacy of Edward R. Murrow). Now, Koppel argues, the networks are all pandering to the lowest common denominator -- less news, more entertainment, fewer foreign news bureaus, bigger profits, etc., etc.

As an admirer of Koppel's, despite his occasional missteps, I lamented his departure from Nightline and hoped he would channel his righteous and well-earned indignation toward something interesting. I suspected that his extra time -- which he has decided to use for these columns, occasional NPR commentaries, and the production of documentaries on The Discovery Channel -- would be put to good use. This column, however, while not entirely terrible, is mostly a rehash of things that everyone has been saying about television news for years. The cable news networks in particular have much to be ashamed about; as Koppel himeslf put it well, cable news is now essentially "blondes reporting on missing blondes." At some point, though, hopefully Koppel will move beyond the standard platitudes.

The closest thing we get to anything new in this piece is the embarrassing revelation that Koppel has an unpublished novel on his shelf about a television news anchor. Yikes.