When Ted Koppel addressed Catholic University's graduating class in 1994, he proclaimed, "We have reconstructed the Tower of Babel, and it is a television antenna." In Koppel's words, "We now communicate with everyone and say absolutely nothing." This may be Koppel's opinion of television in general, but few observers would accept it as a description of Koppel or his late-night ABC news and public affairs program, Nightline (1980- ), for which he has served many functions, including managing editor, anchor, inter­ viewer, and principal on-air reporter. Koppel and Nightline have repeatedly won awards and consistently attract large audiences, even battling against such successful network stars as Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and David Letterman. In the eyes of many TV viewers, Koppel is a celebrity, a respected, gutsy commentator, one of the best interviewers on TV, and a superb reporter. Newsweek once called him the "smartest man on television." Clearly, Koppel does not "say absolutely nothing."

     After first working in radio news at WMCA in New York, Koppel joined ABC News in 1963 as one of the youngest news reporters to ever work for a network, and he quickly rose through the ranks of the organization. He covered Vietnam and became the bureau chief for Miami, Florida, and then Hong Kong, before being named chief diplomatic correspondent in 1971. In this capacity, he established himself as one of television's best reporters. Then on November 4, 1979, Iranian, seized the U.S. embassy in Iran, taking Americans hostage, and television news took another step toward becoming the most reliable source of news. Four days later, ABC News aired at 11:30 P.M. (Eastern Standard Time) a program called The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage, anchored by Frank Reynolds. Roone Arledge, ABC News president, decided this program would continue till the hostage crisis was over; the show would eventually become a regular late-night newscast. After about five months, The Iran Crisis became Nightline, and Koppel, who had anchored The Iran Crisis several times, became the permanent anchor for the new program. Since 1980, it has been difficult to separate Koppel from Nightline.

     Koppel has won nine Overseas Press Club Awards;six George Foster Peabodys, ten duPont-Columbia Awards, two George Polk Awards, two Sigma Delta Chi Awards, and 37 Emmys, as well as countless other honors. In 1994 the Republic of France named him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He went to South Africa for a week-long series in 1985 to analyze apartheid and subsequently won a Gold Baton duPont-Columbia prize for the series. Koppel also interviewed the scandal-plagued televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Baker on Nightline, attracting 42 percent of network viewers. He brought George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis to TV in the last days of the 1988 presidential election when neither was giving interviews. Also, in 1988, Koppel went to the Middle East to report on Arab-Israeli problems and held a town meeting attended by hundreds of Israeli and Arab citizens. He has probably brought Henry Kissinger (who once tried to hire Koppel as his press spokesman at the U.S. State Department) to TV more than any other interviewer. Among many other accomplishments, Koppel achieved a journalistic coup by being the first Western journalist to reach Baghdad after Iraq's Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Koppel eventually began his own production company so he could produce his own programs, such as The Koppel Reports.

     Koppel's success has been earned under the scrutiny of millions of viewers, and he has had his share of critics. While dealing with enormous programming, technological, and economic changes in the business of electronic journalism (not to mention enormous egos), Koppel has persisted and has usually come out on top. However, the style of Nightline was established early as one of "us-versus-them" during the Iran hostage crisis. Critics such as Michael Massing have said Koppel and Nightline are not impartial; some contend that, especially with Kissinger's influence, the show (and therefore Koppel) serves as a "transmission belt for official U.S. views." Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (a watchdog organization also known by its acronym, FAIR) has charged Koppel's Nightline as being overly influenced by white, male, corporate guests. In other words, the audience frequently only gets one side of an issue.

     However, Koppel wants to be seen as impartial, and he wants Nightline to be a program where "people of varying stripes and political persuasions can feel comfortable." Koppel recognizes the possibility, raised by critics, that his work can actually influence news events, but he says that all the journalist can hope for is to "bring events to the attention of people in government," and of course to the public. In his book on ABC News, Marc Gunther describes Koppel's Nightline as the most significant addition to television news since 60 Minutes was created in the 1960s. If this is so, then Ted Koppel may be one of the most significant journalists working in the medium.

     In 2002 Koppel and Nightline became the center of a controversy that grabbed a great deal of media attention. The show's parent companies, Disney and ABC, insulted Koppel and his team by considering replacing Nightline with other programming, such as a comedy/talk program (for a time, ABC sought to lure David Letterman to bring his program to the time period in which Nightline aired, but Letterman eventually re-signed with CBS). The network hoped to attract a younger audience (and the higher ad revenues that programs pitched to that demographic could earn). On the other hand, many other TV news operations (e.g., CNN, PBS) began courting Koppel to join their news lineups, while many television critics as well as on-air journalists warned that ABC's treatment of Koppel epitomized the misguided priorities of networks at the beginning of the 21st century. However, Koppel and Nightline remained on the air with ABC.