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A Bouquet For Ted Koppel

  • NY Times, Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:45 AM
The New York Times' Alessandra Stanley, who writes about TV and TV personalities with a sharpness not generally found elsewhere in the paper, today presents Ted Koppel with a big, wet kiss. The occasion is Koppel's departure, with tonight's show, from "Nightline." He concludes his long, glorious run on the ABC franchise with a recap of one guest's several appearances --the late Morrie Schwartz, who, because his story so resonanted with the American public, eventually became the subject of the best-selling book, Tuesdays With Morrie. Mitch Albom, who wrote the book, will also appear on the final installment of the Koppel-hosted "Nightline". (The show launches with a revised format November 28.) The Times' Stanley, citing the more excitable, if less urbane, on-air presentations of younger TV correspondents who've come along in recent years (she mentions Anderson Cooper in particular), says she will miss the "reticence and reserve" of Ted Koppel. In writing about the Katrina disaster, when NBC News' Brian Williams is said to have gained credibility with the American viewing audience, Stanley says, "Mr. Koppel... 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."

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