Say Anything Blog

In a crass display of political agenda, Nightline host Ted Koppel is set to read the names of all the soldiers killed in the war on Iraq during the Friday, April 30th broadcast.

Nightline's motives for this are two fold. First, this reading will attract a lot of viewers to Nightline for the ratings sweeps. Second, Koppel and company obviously think that by reading aloud the names of the dead they will undermine America's support for the war effort.

When asked if Memorial Day would perhaps be a better day for this memorial broadcast, Koppel responded thusly:

But we felt that the impact would actually be greater on a day when the entire nation is not focused on war dead.

Allow me to translate: "The political influence would be greater and Memorial Day doesn't come during a ratings period."

In response to this, Sinclair Broadcasting's ABC affiliates are going to preempt the Nightline broadcast. Here is Sinclair's statement, via Michael King:

The ABC Television network announced on Tuesday that the Friday, April 30th edition of "Nightline" will consist entirely of Ted Koppel reading aloud the names of U.S. servicemen and women killed in action in Iraq. Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq.
While the Sinclair Broadcast Group honors the memory of the brave members of the military who have sacrificed their lives in the service of our country, we do not believe such political statements should be disguised as news content. As a result, we have decided to preempt the broadcast of "Nightline" this Friday on each of our stations which air ABC programming.

We understand that our decision in this matter may be questioned by some. Before you judge our decision, however, we would ask that you first question Mr. Koppel as to why he chose to read the names of the 523 troops killed in combat in Iraq, rather than the names of the thousands of private citizens killed in terrorists attacks since and including the events of September 11, 2001. In his answer, you will find the real motivation behind his action scheduled for this Friday.