"I'm Ted Koppel, and this is Tufts University."
Tufts community members heard this variation on Koppel's familiar line as the former "Nightline" anchor kicked off yesterday's Edward R. Murrow Symposium in the ASEAN Auditorium. Koppel and other panelists
discussed the evolving role of international reporting and Murrow's legacy with it.
Koppel, a 42-year veteran of ABC News, is best known as the anchor of "Nightline" from 1980 to 2005. He currently serves as the Discovery Channel's managing editor.
In addition to Koppel, the panel featured Louise Lief, deputy director of the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University; Keith Richburg, foreign editor of the Washington Post; Neal Shapiro, Tufts alumnus and former president of NBC News, and Crocker Snow, the director of the Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Following brief introductions by University President Lawrence Bacow and Director of Tufts' Communications and Media Studies Program Julie Dobrow, Koppel opened the event.
"Murrow has had a huge influence on my life," said Koppel, who lived in London during the Blitz and has vivid memories of Murrow's early radio broadcasts.
"I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't want to be Edward R. Murrow," Koppel said.
Murrow, hired by CBS at age 27, became the director of CBS's bureau in London in 1937 and reported on the events of World War II. It was through these commentaries that Koppel was first exposed to the journalist.
Koppel said, however, that the world of journalism today bears no resemblance to the world in which Murrow operated.
"Economic dynamics have changed over the years," said Koppel, recounting that early in the century, television news programs continually lost money. In fact, when the popular news magazine "60 Minutes" aired and began to make money, the business was shocked, Koppel said.
Accordingly, news programs that aired after "60 Minutes" were held to a new standard - one that demanded they turn a profit. This, Koppel said, led to a fragmentation of the news industry.
Koppel added that the push to fulfill new economic demands came at the expense of international reporting. ABC, he said, used to have between 25 and 30 foreign correspondents; now, the network employs five.
"We are covering stories on what your pets do when you're not there to see them," Koppel said.
Shapiro said that the network media, facing aging audiences, huge expenses and competition from cable news, must find ways of balancing limited resources.
One must "do the best you can with the resources and try to cover as much as you can," Shapiro said.
A myriad of satellite feeds and improving technology, he said, have made it easier to disseminate stories around the world without as many bureaus stationed overseas.
Richburg said that this trend towards the dissolution of bureaus had its drawbacks.
"There is no substitute for being there on the ground," Richburg said.
The panelists addressed audience questions related to their concerns about shifting media paradigms.
In response to a question about the effects of media ownership being concentrated among a few large corporations, Shapiro first spoke on the configuration's positive effects.
"During the Iraq War, I was glad I worked for a big corporation that said 'Spend what you need to spend [in order to report],'" said Shapiro, who added that he wished Americans demanded more international stories.
Snow, however, said that consolidating media control in "Western-oriented and Western-funded" companies presents an incomplete and inherently biased view of the world.
The commercial aspects of modern media dominated the discussion and allowed for comparison of today's world with Murrow's time.
"He was creating [a new] medium," Lief said of Murrow. "There was no roadmap."
In today's world, according to Lief, producers and editors need to be more supportive of writers who take risks and undertake in-depth reporting endeavors.
Shapiro expressed a degree of optimism, assuring the audience that media executives believe that "good journalism is good business" and that producers seek quality reporting to make successful programs.
The topic of objectivity arose when an audience member questioned the balance between objective reporting and opinionated coverage.
"A lot of people in this country are so partisan that they don't want objective news," Richburg said, adding that "objectivity" may not be as pertinent a word as "fairness" and "accuracy."
A reporter in Darfur witnessing genocide, for example, can hardly write "objectively" and treat a justification of mass murder with the same weight as a condemnation of it, Richburg said. At the same time, such a reporter could be "fair" by allowing all sides and parties to comment.
Koppel made a distinction between "truth" and "facts" by using a hypothetical presidential speech as an example. If Bush referred to Koppel as "a well known drug dealer," Koppel said, then it would be factually correct to report that he said those words, even though they are untrue.
"The truth frequently takes a long time to catch up to the facts," Koppel said.
All the panelists discussed the issue of patriotism, especially in a post-Sept. 11 world of embedded wartime journalists.
Shapiro said a balance must be struck because the journalists are Americans reporting on American soldiers, but they must also be truthful and accurate.
"Our troops are in this war," he said.
Some of Murrow's critics say that he practiced a form of "advocacy journalism" because his personal stance was evident in his broadcasts. Snow, however, said that there is a difference between "personality journalism" and what some have translated to advocacy journalism.
"You ... knew where he stood, but it didn't undermine the balance and objectivity of his broadcast," Snow said.
Murrow's television career included a challenge to Senator Joseph McCarthy, as well as the documentary "Harvest of Shame," which explored the plight of migrant farm laborers. He also served as director of the United States Information Agency after he left CBS in 1961.
In 1965, the Murrow Center - which houses 1,600 books, photographs and pieces of personal memorabilia - was established at Tufts' Fletcher School.
Koppel said that Murrow has served as a powerful role model and inspiration for him and his career, and offered some general comments about the profession.
An "essential quality of vibrant journalism is that you're not on anyone's team," Koppel said. He ended with some encouraging words, telling all aspiring to a career in journalism to "be great."
