AND THIS IS...

By Richard Zoglin

Hard to believe now, but there once was a time when the idea of a regularly scheduled network news program following the late local news was considered radical. Roone Arledge and his fellow ABC News executives for years had wanted to grab the time period, and when they finally did, it was to be only for the duration of the Iran hostage crisis. The show (which started covering other stories as the crisis dragged on) was just 15 minutes long at first. It later expanded to a bloated hour for one year before settling into the current half-hour interview-plus-analysis format that, over 16 years, has become the most important news broadcast on American television.

Ted Koppel, the show's masterly anchorman, is certainly entitled to toot his own horn, and Nightline: History in the Making and the Making of Television, which he has co-authored with former Nightline producer Kyle Gibson (Times Books; 477 pages; $25), has its self-indulgent excesses. It is essentially a scrapbook of the show's milestones, major interviews, bookers' war stories and amusing anecdotes, which can dribble on like one of those endless Nightline "town meetings."

Still, for anyone who cares about TV news, the book is fascinating. The growth of Nightline paralleled the development of satellite broadcasting; by linking newsmakers worldwide, the show could not only report on but often become a participant in major news events. Nightline aired groundbreaking debates about South African apartheid and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the organizing of which were diplomatic feats almost as impressive as those later achieved at bargaining tables. Controversial figures, from Ferdinand Marcos to Lani Guinier, used the show as a platform to defend themselves; others, like former baseball executive Al Campanis, were undone by it.

The book offers candid assessments of the show's less stellar moments as well. Koppel, we learn, never liked the idea of doing a show on comedian John Belushi's death--especially when the only show-biz "friend" of his the show managed to book was Milton Berle. Koppel's choice for the all-time worst Nightline is a 1985 interview with Le Duc Tho, in which the former North Vietnamese negotiator rattled on interminably (as fellow guest Henry Kissinger fumed) because his interpreter refused to convey Koppel's desperate efforts to stop him. A rare guest who Koppel says got the better of him: Mandy Grunwald, who spoke for candidate Bill Clinton when Gennifer Flowers first surfaced. Grunwald blasted Nightline for covering the story at all. "Mandy nailed me," Koppel concedes.

Mostly, though, Koppel nails others. If the book lacks larger consideration of Nightline's place in the TV-news universe, it does offer a fine appreciation of Koppel's interviewing technique. He has always stood apart for his unmatched ability to focus, his knack for cutting through obfuscation. With Jim and Tammy Bakker, Koppel recalls that he was "worried about going after them too hard," yet jumped in as soon as the televangelists started quoting Scripture: "Is it going to be possible to get through an interview with both of you without you wrapping yourselves in the Bible?" To Michael Dukakis, who persisted in giving bland responses during an interview meant to resurrect his failing presidential campaign, Koppel blurted: "With all due respect, let me suggest to you, I still don't think you get it." ("I was inviting the candidate to slap me down," he recalls. "And I couldn't imagine why he didn't.") And this was his elegant response to an evasive Iraqi diplomat: "Ambassador Hamdoon, I know that you have had another career before you became a diplomat, so perhaps you will take some pity on me. I'm not a diplomat. I don't understand what those phrases mean. Does that mean yes or no?" Reporters might like to post that one on the refrigerator.

--By Richard Zoglin