Ted Koppel: Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news

"Real News" has been dead for ages, if it even ever existed.

It's far more obvious now with the over-the-top Orwellian nonsense on the TV these days, but the end result is precisely the same.

 

I only watch one news program. The BBC World News Service. Compared to the morning news that my parents'watch, there's a huge difference. There's no personality, no pathetic attempt at jokes. It's like listening to... news. There's no opinion when there's no personality. The news shouldn't be entertaining, it shouldn't have "a personality" it should just facts with the occasional insight of correspondents. That is how you elimanate biased news.

 

Funny, watching Olbermann last night he was interviewing Bill Maher and they were discussing this topic somewhat. their point was that at least Olbermann presents facts.

I don't know if this is really something anything can be done about, I still think the three major networks have unbiased reporting on their world news broadcasts. as far as the criticism of not having enough foreign correspondants, sounds like a different topic

 

Jon Stewart sat down with Rachel Maddow last night, to defend some of the criticism he's been getting over his speech at the Rally To Restore Sanity, which has been derided as painting a false equivalence between Fox News and the rest of cable news. Stewart told Maddow that his point was that cable news networks have allowed the left and the right to become the fight, and it "amplifies a division that I don't actually think is the right fight."

"Anybody who has watched our show in any measure would understand the special place in our hearts for Fox," Stewart said, but "we have a tendency to grant amnesty to people we agree with, and to over-demonize people we don't."

He said: "Look at the difference between the top story on cable news and the top story in the newspaper. You would have thought Juan Williams killed people. It was everywhere. And the reason that it was everywhere was because it fell so beautifully into the narrative" of left versus right.

"Networks are not meant to be viewed in aggregate," he said, but in aggregate, "there's an effect." And though Jon acknowledged that he has a lot of influence himself, it "is not then reinforced through the next person" who comes on the air.

Here's the full interview:

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Network news has been dead to anyone who still pays attention.

Ironically, a newspaper is even more important to make sense out of the flood of information coming out of the internet and everywhere else. Even my favorite news program, PBS's Newshour, admits that it's only a gateway to reading more into the story.

 

If I understand things correctly, that's how it used to be. You used to get breaking news and quick headlines from TV and you would get more detailed stories in the paper. Now everything sucks .

 

That's always struck me as a pretty thin justification. You can present facts and still mislead your audience with which facts you choose to report and which ones you ignore. Obviously, eliminating bias from the delivery of news isn't possible (though there are degrees of offense), but Olbermann wants to hide behind this journalistic integrity excuse for a show that is still, at the end of the day, intentionally editorially partisan. All these 'facts' do is allow people who already agree feel justified in agreeing.

 

I fully understand what to expect from each network and anchor for that matter, it really doesn't bother me.

the thing that has bothered me recently is some of the questions getting asked at Obama press conferences like the post election one recently. I started outed a thread on a question asked by savanah guthrie of msnbc and she was basically asking if obama would admit that his policies were rejected. the question was extremely loaded and she was extremely aggressive.

two things, we never saw that with gwb and and it amazes me that some of the people hoping for more transpecrancy from Obama actually complain, because obama takes tough questions.

secondly, even when doing interviews, your question should still give the politician a chance to answer the question without such bias or opinion. i mean there are plenty ways to interpet the election but you don't ask if it should be interpeted one way and get upset if there isn't a definite yes or no.

 

Its interesting cause we live in an age of instant information but the sad reality is that we have to question the information we are receiving because of the alter-agendas of the people in charge...

It largely summarizes whats wrong with the country/world at large. The personal-agendas of the people with power truly has taken over the decision making throughout America and the world. We all know and realize that there is something inherently wrong with the world we now live in. Its easy to not think about and to comfort ourselves by calling everything a conspiracy theory, but I know Im not the only person, who when they really think about where the world is headed gets scared $hitless. Completely off-topic but just needed to say it.

 

The Obermann video I cited in the other thread addresses this point. Ted Koppel did literally dozens of 30 minute programs about Iraq leading up to the war and parrotted the administration line in his supposedly "objective" manner, when there were other points of view available. So who is Ted the discreditted Koppel to opine on real news?

Koppel and the NYT, WA PO etc. need to keep apologizing over and over for breaching journalistic ethical standards to please their corporate masters.

 

I haven't read the Washington Post article yet but I heard Koppel on NPR yesterday talking about the same subject. What he said there was that he doesn't have a problem with having partisan talking heads like Olbermann and Hannity but the problem that news media were turning more toward that type of programming than actually gathering news. He said this wasn't necessarily a function of journalism being more partisan but that it was cheaper to have more talk than to go out and report. For example it is cheaper to have a Bill O'Reilly than to maintain a Moscow and / or Beijing bureau.

 

There is a difference between having a point of view and making up BS to build your point of view.

Neither should be a good thing when it comes to doing the news, but one still worse than the other.

 

Aren't you parroting Olbermann's line?

Koppel et al probably could've done a better job investigating but at the same time it is their job to report what the Admin. says, now that very well might be a bunch of BS but what the President, Secretary Defense and etc.. says is still news. At the same time Koppel and others in the main stream media also reported on things going bad in Iraq. Remember he took a lot of flak from pro-war supporters when Nightline would list the names of US troops who died in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

I know the style disappoints you since he has a clear point of view, but when it turns out that Olbermann was correct and Koppel just was a mere conduit for the administration, Olbermann tends to have the better of the argument.
How much real reporting did Koppel do when it turns out his nightly guests were either "ABC military experts" on the Pentagon payroll or self identified Adminstration spokespersons. I'm sorry there is no excuse for the mainstream's misreporting and violating of journalism standards on reporting in the time leading up to the war.

Well yeah, but why not do some other "reporting" besides parroting the Administration.? Why not even the usual the Bush Admin said: other sources say: ? The facts were there in plain sight. We on this bbs had access to them and the discussion was back and forth. Why not Koppel?

Well thanks after his negligence may have caused the war to start. I'm sure a couple hundred thousand dead Iraqis and ten thousand dead and seriously wounded Americans are giving thanks for Ted Koppel finally reporting.

 

Ted Koppel is no position to criticize anyone.