Koppel: In His Own Words

> WP: “I really don’t think there’s anything else at ABC I would find as interesting or as challenging…David offered me the opportunity to continue on ‘Nightline,’ but it would have to have been on the basis of a one-hour program, doing it live five days a week. I’ve been doing it for 25 years. I’m now at a stage of life where it’s not something I feel I can do any more.”

> AP:“Maybe they feel that it’s time to give somebody younger and willing to go downmarket a chance, but I’d only be speculating,” he said. “I hope they don’t go downmarket.”

> NYT: Koppel considered taking the This Week job. “It was a possibility and it’s certainly a fine platform and it’s an interesting broadcast. But by the same token, I really feel there are other things I would rather do.”

>USAT: “There have been a couple of bumps along the road,” he said. The Letterman incident “made Nightline a survivalist camp for a while.” But “there are all kinds of new pressures and new reasons why change is a good thing for Nightline and for ABC News.”

> AP: “I’m too much a reporter and a realist, and have been in this business too long, not to recognize that my salary is very high, particularly for someone who only does three days a week now.”