Ted Koppel

Ted Koppel, a 42-year veteran of ABCNEWS, was named anchor of Nightline when the broadcast was introduced in March 1980. In his anchor role, Koppel is the principal on-air reporter and interviewer for television's first late-night network news program. In addition, Mr. Koppel is the program's managing editor. Koppel has won every major broadcasting award, including 37 Emmy Awards, six George Foster Peabody Awards, 10 duPont- Columbia Awards, nine Overseas Press Club Awards, two George Polk Awards and two Sigma Delta Chi Awards, the highest honor bestowed for public service by the Society of Professional Journalists. Koppel was honored with the first Goldsmith Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Journalism by the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. In 1997, he was awarded the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award from Quinnipiac College. In addition, he was the recipient of the prestigious Gabriel Personal Achievement Award from the National Catholic Association of Broadcasters and Communicators. In 1985, Koppel was honored with the first Gold Baton in the history of the duPont-Columbia Awards for Nightline's week-long series originating from South Africa. Koppel and Nightline were cited for "the most extraordinary television of the year." He was named the first recipient of the Sol Taishoff Award presented by Broadcasting Magazine. He was voted best interviewer on radio or TV by The Washington Journalism Review in 1987, and was named Broadcaster of the Year by the International Television and Radio Society. Koppel is an inductee of the Broadcasting Hall of Fame. In 1994, Koppel was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Republic of France. He has received honorary degrees from numerous universities in the United States. Before his Nightline assignment, Koppel worked as an anchor, foreign and domestic correspondent and bureau chief for ABCNEWS. From 1971 to 1980, he was ABCNEWS' chief diplomatic correspondent, and for a two-year period beginning in 1975, he anchored The ABC Saturday Night News. His diplomatic assignment included coverage of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a tour of duty that took him more than a quarter of a million miles during the days of Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy." During the time he was on the State Department beat, Mr. Koppel co-wrote the best seller, In the National Interest, with his friend and colleague, Marvin Kalb, formerly of CBS News. Before being named diplomatic correspondent, Koppel was ABCNEWS' Hong Kong bureau chief from 1969 to 1971, covering stories from Vietnam to Australia. In 1968, he became Miami bureau chief for ABCNEWS, where his assignments included covering Latin America. On the political beat, he has had a major reporting role in every presidential campaign since 1964. Koppel joined ABCNEWS New York in 1963, as a full-time general assignment correspondent, at the age of 23. Prior to joining ABCNEWS he worked at WMCA Radio in New York City, where he was a desk assistant and an occasional off- air reporter. A native of Lancashire, England, Koppel moved to the United States with his parents when he was 13 years old. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Syracuse University and an M.A. in mass communications research and political science from Stanford. He is married to the former Grace Anne Dorney of New York City. They reside in Maryland and have four children.