Off Camera, Ted Koppel
Off Camera, Ted Koppel
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Off Camera
Private Thoughts Made Public

Author: Ted Koppel

Narrator: Ted Koppel

Abridged: 5 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/03/2000


Synopsis

One of America's most admired TV anchors gives us an intimate chronicle of the final year of the twentieth century. In this engrossing narrative, a national bestseller, are all the most significant matters of that year--from Bill Clinton’s impeachment to Columbine, from the war in Kosovo to Y2K and the mass-marketing of Viagra. Here are the people who made the news--from Slobodan Milosevic to Hillary Rodham Clinton to Michael Jordan to John F. Kennedy Jr. The events of 1999 anticipate so many of the on-going challenges America faces today that Koppel’s account feels entirely prescient.

Koppel's book moves on yet another level as events trigger memories of his own past, providing a more personal resonance to his telling of the history we all share. He takes us back to the England in which he lived until he was thirteen. He revisits his powerful experiences as an interviewer investigating prison abuses and probing the violence in our schools. He discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the media; he talks about racial intolerance, about brutality toward gay people, about the absence of political leadership. He also examines such cultural phenomena as our obsession with celebrity and the impact of great theater and overhyped movies.  

        Here is the voice we knew so well from Nightline--intelligent, curious, opinionated, witty, concerned--reminding us in entertaining and thought-provoking ways that even the most public events reverberate in our private lives.

About The Author

Ted Koppel, a thirty-seven-year veteran of ABC News, has been anchor of Nightline since March 1980. He has won every significant television award, including thirty-two Emmys, six Peabodys, nine Overseas Press Club awards, two George Polk Awards, and two Sigma Delta Chi Awards. Before creating Nightline, he was a foreign, domestic, and war correspondent and bureau chief for ABC, and its chief diplomatic correspondent. He is the author, with Marvin Kalb, of In the National Interest. He lives with his wife in Maryland.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Will on October 26, 2008

In 1999, Koppel kept a diary. These are notes from each day of the year. We learn a bit about his personal background, how he reacts to the events of the day, occasional musings about this and that. It does provide a little insight into his worldview, professional ethics, that sort of thing. It also......more

Goodreads review by Fran on July 31, 2015

Interesting book. Life in 1999 through the eyes of a newsman.......more

Goodreads review by Becky on February 04, 2018

I listened to this audiobook in Feb. 2018, a full 18 years after it was written. It was fascinating listening to the thoughts journaled from 1999 by Ted Koppel throughout the whole year. Remembering Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky's indiscretions, the universal worry of Y2K and it's effects, the wa......more

Goodreads review by Jim on May 15, 2021

In my twenties, largely because of work, the only televised news program I regularly (and almost religiously) watched was ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel. I felt I was getting a more in-depth accounting of the selected and important world's events and I held up Koppel as one of my favorites. Sadly,......more

Goodreads review by Joann on May 08, 2017

interesting reading. Wish hadn't gone by month. Reminded me situations that I had forgot.back then. Some of his own thoughts I could have gone without.......more


Quotes

"[Koppel] writes with aplomb. His style puts readers at ease, just as his on-air style seems to put guests and audience at ease."
--The Christian Science Monitor

"Koppel's voice on the page is very much like his voice on camera-wry and measured...The pleasure here is that he is not bound by journalistic restraint."--The Denver Post

"[Y]ou will get to know... Ted Koppel... irreverent, ironical, informative, intimate, sometimes irritable, but always enormously interesting."
--Barbara Walters

"[I]n this magnificently written volume, [Koppel] speaks about himself with his usual elegance and rigor."
--Elie Wiesel