Ted Koppel

Early life and education

Koppel, an only child, was born in Nelson, England, after his German Jewish parents fled Germany following the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. In Germany, Koppel's father had operated a tire manufacturing company. To help the British economy, the Home Secretary invited him and his wife to relocate his factory to Lancashire, England, where he was promised that their safety would be protected in the event of war. They moved the factory there in 1936, but when war broke out in Europe in 1939, he was instead declared an enemy alien and imprisoned on the Isle of Man for a year and a half.

Koppel was born in 1940, shortly after his father was taken away. For income, his mother sold her personal jewelry and did menial work in London to provide for her infant son. When his father was released he was still not permitted to work in England, nor would he allow his wife to work. In the years after the war ended, they gained some money from their confiscated assets and decided to leave for the U.S. In 1953, when he was 13, the family emigrated to the United States, where his mother, Alice, became a singer and pianist, and his father, Edwin, opened a tire factory. Koppel says "they came here because they believed the opportunities for me would be better in America." Koppel's boyhood hero was radio broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, whose factual reports during the bombings of London inspired him to want to become a journalist.

After attending the McBurney School, a private preparatory institution in New York, he attended and graduated from Syracuse University at age 20 with a Bachelor of Science degree.His roommate recalls that Koppel "was incredibly focused and had a photographic memory. He remembers almost every conversation he ever had with anybody. And the man never needs sleep."

Koppel then went to Stanford University where he earned a Master of Arts degree in mass communications research and political science. While at Stanford he met his wife-to-be, Grace Anne Dorney.

News correspondent

Koppel had a brief stint as a teacher before being hired as a copyboy at WMCA Radio in New York. In June 1963, he became the youngest correspondent ever hired by ABC Radio News, working on the daily Flair Reports program. It was as a result of his covering the Kennedy assassination in 1963 with Charles Osgood that the national news audience first took notice of him. He was scheduled to do a short report, but a delay during the crisis forced him to ad-lib for an hour and a half.

In 1964 he covered his first of many presidential nominating conventions. He also began covering the civil rights movement in Selma, Alabama. ABC officials were impressed by Koppel's ability to clarify issues using plain language. Starting in 1966, he was made the ABC News correspondent during the Vietnam War, and it was during that period he changed from broadcasting over radio to doing so on national television. He accepted the assignment only after the network agreed to send his wife and their two children to Hong Kong so they could be nearby. Before going he took a course to learn the Vietnamese language.

He returned in 1968 to cover the campaign of Richard Nixon, before becoming Hong Kong bureau chief, and U.S. State Department correspondent where Koppel formed a friendship with Henry Kissinger. According to Nixon assistant John Ehrlichman, Koppel's friendship with Kissinger was partly due to their similar backgrounds, as they both had Jewish parents who were refugees from Hitler, and both emigrated to America in their youth.

Koppel was among those traveling to China with U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972. He spoke about this with the USC U.S.-China Institute for their Assignment: China documentary series on American media coverage of China. Koppel likened the trip to a "journey to the dark side of the moon." By 1975, he was anchoring ABC Evening News on Saturdays, and he continued to file reports for ABC Radio.

Koppel would often report on the State Department's foreign conferences, as when he traveled with Kissinger during his meetings in Egypt and Israel in 1975. He said about Kissinger: "I have a high regard for Henry. He has a first-class mind. A half hour with him gives me a better insight into a foreign policy question than hours with others."

In the mid-1970s Koppel took a year off from his news anchor position to stay home with his children so that his wife could complete her education at Georgetown Law School. That decision by Koppel upset ABC News president Roone Arledge, who then dropped Koppel as news anchor when he returned to the network.

In April 1979 he was lead reporter for an eleven-segment series, "Second to None?", which focused on explaining the dangers of nuclear war. He did his own research and wanted to present "complex material to an audience that hasn't paid much attention in the past but must in the future . . . if there is to be a future." For the series he received an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award.

Host of Nightline

Koppel became known for his work as the host of a late night news program called Nightline. The program originated as a series of special reports about the 444-day long Iranian hostage crisis, during which Iranian militants held 52 American captive, beginning in early November 1979. At first, the program was called America Held Hostage, and was hosted by veteran news reporter Frank Reynolds. Koppel eventually joined Reynolds as co-anchor. In March 1980, the program evolved into Nightline, with Koppel as its host. In 1990 ABC News ran a one-hour special called "The Best of Nightline with Ted Koppel." Koppel spent twenty-five years anchoring the program, before leaving ABC (and leaving as host of Nightline) in late November 2005.

While hosting Nightline, Koppel also hosted a series of special programs called Viewpoint, beginning in 1981, which provided media criticism and analysis. It was envisioned by ABC News Vice President George Watson as a way to address any media bias that viewers might believe they encountered on the network. Broadcast before a live audience, it provided viewers with a chance to question how stories were reported or critique television news. Viewpoint was broadcast sporadically, from 1981 until 1997.

Some liberal groups suggested that Koppel was a conduit for the government's point of view, and accused him of favoring conservatives when selecting guests. In the late 1980s, the progressive media criticism organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) claimed that policymakers and ex-officials dominated the Nightline guest list, with critics of foreign policy less visible. In 1987, Newsweek called him the "quintessential establishment journalist". Koppel responded that "We are governed by the president and his cabinet and their people. And they are the ones who are responsible for our foreign policy, and they are the ones I want to talk to".

Departure from Nightline

On November 22, 2005, Koppel stepped down from Nightline after 25 years with the program and left ABC after 42 years with the network. His final Nightline broadcast did not feature clips highlighting memorable interviews and famous moments from his tenure as host, as is typical when an anchor retires. Instead, the show replayed the highly acclaimed episode of Nightline with Koppel's 1995 interviews with retired Brandeis University sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, who was dying of Lou Gehrig's disease).

Following Nightline Koppel has taken on a number of roles which span various formats of news media:

Discovery Channel

Following his departure from Nightline Koppel formed a three-year partnership with Discovery Communications as managing editor of the Discovery Channel. While at Discovery, Koppel produced several lengthy documentaries on a variety of subjects including a 2008 four-hour miniseries on China, which Koppel "ranks with some of the work that [he is] most proud of over the years." The four-part documentary, called The People's Republic of Capitalism, is an extensive look at the fast-changing country. It takes a look at the role of Chinese consumers in the growing -but yet communist- economy.

Koppel and Discovery Communications parted ways in November, 2008, terminating their contract six months early, prompting rumors that Koppel would be hired for NBC's Meet the Press. Koppel stated that he was not interested in the job.

Honors and awards

Koppel returns to Syracuse University regularly as a guest speaker. He was a member of the student-run WAER and keeps in touch with the student media at Syracuse. He is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.

Emmy Awards

Personal life

In 1963, Koppel became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and married Grace Anne Dorney, a Roman Catholic. They have four children: Andrea (a former journalist), Deirdre, Andrew, and Tara. Andrew Koppel was found dead in a New York City apartment on May 31, 2010, reportedly after a day-long drinking binge. Koppel is multilingual and speaks German and French in addition to his native English.

Koppel is a longtime friend of Henry Kissinger. Both Kissinger and Koppel moved to the United States as children. Along with former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Kissinger was the most frequent guest on Nightline. In an interview, Koppel commented, "Henry Kissinger is, plain and simply, the best secretary of state we have had in 20, maybe 30 years – certainly one of the two or three great secretaries of state of our century," and added, "I’m proud to be a friend of Henry Kissinger. He is an extraordinary man. This country has lost a lot by not having him in a position of influence and authority".