Ted Koppel is unhappy with the media’s coverage of Donald Trump, especially these days.
As a guest “Dan Abrams Live”Friday night on NewsNation, the revered veteran journalist and former journalist “Nightline” anchor shared his thoughts about media bias and – and his wish that news versus opinion had a greater distinction.
“I’m terribly concerned that when you talk about the New York Times these days, when you talk about the Washington Post these days,” Koppel began. “We’re not talking about the New York Times of 50 years ago. We are not talking about the Washington Post of 50 years ago. We’re talking about organizations that I believe have, in fact, decided as organizations that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.”
Abrams asked him if this has affected media coverage about Donald Trump over recent years.
Koppel answered, “I think opinion belongs on the opinion page. That’s why they call it the op-ed section. That’s where the opinion pieces are, the columns, that’s where the editorials are and that’s where it belongs. I don’t like seeing opinion being expressed on the front page of a great newspaper.”
He continued, “Having said that, let me say again, I think the Times, the Post, the Wall Street Journal are doing some of the best journalism that I have seen over the past 50 years. I just wish they wouldn’t step into that category… It bothers me when I see them losing some of the criteria that always used to keep a wall between opinion and news coverage.”
Abrams claimed that “some would be that Donald Trump is different. That he has to be covered differently by the media than others.”
Koppel, however, argued that once these distinctions are made, “it’s very difficult to know where you stop.”
“Do you feel that way about anybody else in politics?,”He asked. “Are we going to start picking up our morning newspaper to see who is in and who is out, in terms of the news coverage? Again, there’s a place for that in the op-ed section. I don’t like it on the front page.”
You can view the whole segment in the video above.