Let’s face it, late-night television is entertaining. You’ve got celebrity interviews, funny (albeit extremely stupid) skits and performers shamelessly promoting their bands on national television. However, much like any other vice in the world, moderation is the key. And, in light of the recent debacle about ABC replacing “Nightline” with the David Letterman Show, this lesson is all the more relevant.
As college students (and professors), we face erratic hours, striving to fit in every last task before the night expires. However, in the waning hours between our busy lives on campus and a few precious hours of sleep exists that glowing box that lures us to its oftentimes-brainless lair.
While angry former congressmen wrote letters to the New York Times after the news about the possible switch leaked out of ABC’s labyrinthine bowels, and before it was clear that Koppel would indeed stay on the air, I opened the Salt Lake Tribune in search of an answer to the question: Would intelligence after 10:30 p.m. survive without “Nightline”?
The answer? Well, Mr. Trebek, I wrote: What is a snowball’s chance in hell. And what did I wager? At least 30,000 of my hard-earned college brain cells. The viable options to replace “Nightline” were “The Late Show,” which boasted its line-up as “Bear expert Timothy Treadwell and actress Cate Blanchett,” or “The Jeff Corwin Experience,” where “Jeff wrestles a big caiman and rescues a giant anaconda.”
Unless U.S. troops are fighting bears in Afghanistan or using snakes to strangle approaching Taliban forces, not a single drop of news can be squeezed out of this late night sponge.
So why is it truly important for our generation to watch a man twice (maybe three) times our age spend 30 minutes each night reporting in-depth stories about what’s happening around the world?
Perhaps it’s just that?Koppel takes his viewers outside of their comfortable milieu and drops them into the intense and sometimes frightening environment know as “the outside world.”
In his March 5 New York Times letter to the editor regarding the network fiasco, Newt Gingrich adamantly stated that he “found that “Nightline” was in genuine pursuit of knowledge and truth.”
Hmmm, sounds like something we should be familiar with, something called college?where we peel off the onion-esque layers of an issue, throw them into the skillet know as a classroom and let them simmer.
Gingrich continued his letter, adding that “Nightline” was willing to “take the time to explore complex issues, giving its viewers insight and understanding that other programs fail to provide.”
It’s not that there are not other news options. Of course, you can turn to CNN. However, with the newly added entertainment coverage and sports ticker on steroids, the amount of superfluous information CNN manages to fit on the screen is baffling. It’s hard enough to see the face of the reporter, let alone to focus, as he or she tries to explain the history of Middle Eastern conflicts in less than 15 seconds. In fact, the station even advertises its sheer lack of in-depth reporting with its motto, “Real news. Real fast.”
If that’s not enough to convince you that “Nightline” is the last bastion of in-depth nighttime news reporting, look at it this way. As a college student, would you rather watch 30 minutes of Oprah’s book club, or hold an engaging discussion late into the night with friends about a novel you are reading in class? Though I am not saying that you need to make friends with Ted Koppel, he is, in many ways, like a teacher?giving the audience high-caliber insight into issues that, most likely, they wouldn’t discover on their own.
For instance, last week, a “Nightline” reporter moderated a discussion with Catholic seminary students on how the future generation of priests will handle the issues of molestations and pedophilia in the church. Note two words in the previous sentence: next generation. Yep, that’s right. Mr. Koppel addresses the issues that will soon rest on our shoulders.
Ironically, it is the network executives that thinks they are giving the younger set what it needs to lead America in the coming decades: more advertisements. The need to cater to a younger audience?specifically the college-age crowd?played a major role in ABC’s courtship of Letterman. Recent research by Miller Brewing Co. showed that 21-to-34 year olds consume 53 percent of all beer?and the late night advertising market doesn’t stop there. Movie studios find that viewers of “The Tonight Show” are the perfect captive audience to tout their latest and greatest flicks.
As if the inundation of advertisements specifically targeting the college set is not enough to sap the life out of the phrase “intelligent and independent thought,” consider the content of Letterman and Leno: monologues oftentimes based on exaggerated versions of the news, interviews with celebrities (whose obvious motivations are not to inform the public, but to persuade them to see his or her movie), and, of course (who could forget), Letterman’s stupid pet tricks.
When an ABC executive was quoted in the New York Times, saying that “The relevancy of ‘Nightline’ just is not there anymore,” it makes one wonder if he or she is living in a parallel world, where watching Bingo the Incredible Hula-Hooping Dog is more germane than the future of one of the world’s largest religions.
Three years ago, a friend of mine did an internship with “Nightline.” He was part of the daily editorial meetings with Koppel, where the production staff would get together and decide on the show’s content. One day, when discussing “Nightline,” my friend turned to me and asked, “Why do you think, that after 20 years, Ted Koppel has never changed his hair?” I shrugged, assuming that Koppel just liked it that way. My friend answered the question for me: “He doesn’t have to.”
And it’s true. “Nightline” is not about the glitz and the glamour; it’s not about selling this or selling that. How Ted Koppel’s hair looks just doesn’t matter. “Nightline” is about learning, not entertaining.
So here is my suggestion: When you have finished your work tonight and want to watch television before going to bed, flip it to ABC and watch an episode of “Nightline.” If you don’t give it a chance, you might be living the network executives’ favorite dream?the one where we are all, as stupid pets, performing their tricks.
Laura welcomes feedback at: [email protected] or send letters to the editor to: [email protected].