Koppel Exits: “You Have To Understand That I Wasn’t Born When Nightline Began”

Today’s Hollywood Reporter includes a dialogue between Paul Gough and Ted Koppel.

“Looking back over 26 years of shows, I’m struck by how Nightline has truly been a chronicle of our times,” Gough commented.

Koppel responded: “It’s amazing, it really is. It’s funny, because I knew that I was personally in trouble with a new group of interns, and I made reference to the Jim Jones massacre (the 1978 mass suicide of more than 900 members of a cult by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid) and was talking about not drinking the Kool-Aid, and I could see a lot of blank faces around me. And I explained it to them. One of them raised his hand — this is about five years ago — and said, ‘Ted, I’m very sorry, but you have to understand that I wasn’t born when Nightline began.’ That made me realize all of the sudden the years had really whipped by.”