Ted Koppel's last Nightline broadcast tonight 11/22/05

Kopple also had an indepth interview on the PBS Charlie Rose show last night.----BBB

With Little Fanfare, an Anchor Says Goodbye
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: November 22, 2005

Leave it to Ted Koppel to quit "Nightline" in the same wry, superior way he began it 25 years ago. His choice for a valedictory broadcast is not a video scrapbook crammed with slow-motion clips and misty testimonials from world leaders. Nor is it a foreboding look forward at what network news will be like without him.

Instead, Mr. Koppel cunningly devotes his last half-hour on ABC News to someone else's last act. Eschewing the kind of self-referential pomposity that most anchors thrive on, "A Tuesday With Morrie" allows Mr. Koppel to take another look at a once-unknown man, Morrie Schwartz, a Brandeis University professor who in 1995 allowed "Nightline" to document the last year of his life as he battled A.L.S., or Lou Gehrig's Disease.

The show is a tribute to Mr. Schwartz's indomitable spirit, but the broadcast also serves as a veiled showcase for Mr. Koppel's proud, contrarian personality. He built his career on being different - professorial, not telegenic; cerebral, not entertaining; coolly amusing, not genial or avuncular. "A Tuesday With Morrie" tonight is Koppel's last chance on ABC to épater les bourgeois.

Those three interviews with Mr. Schwartz were among the most requested "Nightline" shows, rebroadcast several times and still available on DVD and VHS. Mr. Koppel intersperses clips of those shows with a more recent interview with Mitch Albom, a sportswriter and former student of Mr. Schwartz who was inspired by the "Nightline" show to write a book, "Tuesdays With Morrie," that became a best seller and later a television movie. (Mr. Albom went on to write another best seller, "The Five People You Meet in Heaven.")

Throughout his conversations with Mr. Schwartz, who died in November 1995, Mr. Koppel maintained his customary cool. Mr. Koppel asks Mr. Schwartz about death, dying and the daily indignities of his disease dispassionately, without condescension, pity or camera-pleasing pathos. And Mr. Schwartz was an ideal subject: lucid, good-humored and intellectually engaging to the end. The two men had a tender-tough rapport. Close to death, Mr. Schwartz asks softly, jokingly, if having led a good life entitles him to be an angel. Mr. Koppel replies, Bogart-style, "Yeah, you'd be - you'd be cute with a pair of wings, Morrie."

There were times when "Nightline" seemed tired and obsolete, but Mr. Koppel managed to stay on his game when it counted. He was at his personal best in the early days of the Iraq invasion as an embedded reporter. Traveling with the Third Infantry Division, Mr. Koppel wore a helmet too big for his head, and managed to deliver incisive, well-structured live reports, staying level-headed and dispassionate when many of his younger colleagues grew strained and emotionally involved with the troops they accompanied. He never lost his dry, deflating sense of humor. He once described enemy resistance during the invasion as "more annoying than devastating."

Mr. Koppel began as anchor of "Nightline" in March 1980, after first proving his mettle as host of a late-night program, "The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage." Those were primordial days in television news, before CNN, easy live-by-satellite access, and the Internet. He stood out immediately, interviewing guests about the story of the day with crisp authority and a brisk, no-nonsense style. He was sometimes confrontational, but almost always in an impersonal, somewhat lofty manner.

Mr. Koppel leaves at a time when younger anchors are making a name for themselves by flaunting their personal feelings on the air. During the Hurricane Katrina debacle, NBC's Brian Williams was widely applauded for venting his anger and frustration over the government's failure to act quickly to help the victims. So was Anderson Cooper, who recently replaced Aaron Brown as CNN's late night anchor and famously gave Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana an on-air tongue-lashing.

Mr. Koppel also covered the scandal of Katrina, and was often quite scathing, asking the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael D. Brown, "Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio?" But Mr. Koppel never lost his aplomb, or his aversion to the first-person pronoun.

And his reticence and reserve will be missed. ABC decided to replace him with three anchors, Terry Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir, a former BBC and ITV reporter best known for sensationalist interviews with celebrities like Diana, Princess of Wales, and Michael Jackson. CBS News and ABC News have not yet announced their choices to take over their evening news broadcasts, but it is unlikely that either network will find an anchor with the same cool, impersonal manner and inquisitive style.

Mr. Koppel recently was a guest on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°," a nighttime news program that is the un-"Nightline": Mr. Cooper jumps from topic to topic at top speed, everything from grisly true-crime stories to interviews with the likes of Nicole Richie. (Mr. Cooper has kept Hurricane Katrina on the air as a personal badge of honor with a nightly feature, "Keeping Them Honest," which highlights the latest disgrace in the recovery effort.)

Mr. Koppel was gracious, and kept his critique of television news light, noting dryly that he was disheartened by the cable news "obsession with being first with the obvious."

And he declined the opportunity to sound sentimental or nostalgic. When Mr. Cooper asked Mr. Koppel why he was leaving ABC News, Mr. Koppel gave a dry smile and replied, "Why not?"