You probably already knew about this incident from back in 2004: Nightline spent an entire 40-minute show just reading the names of soldiers who have fallen in Iraq.
Ted Koppel is the anchor for that show. “This was never intended to be about us,” he said, “and for all the controversy swirling around the program, tonight is just going to be about the men and women who have died in the war in Iraq.”
After all the names were done, Koppel concluded, “Our goal tonight was to elevate the fallen above the politics and the daily journalism ....”
One night, one show, is hardly an issue for balance. (I firmly believe that we can extend our perception of balance to include a broader span of time than any single episode of a show.)
On an interview with NPR, however, the producer of Nightline affirmed that they made a conscious decision to talk about Iraq every night. He did not go on to specify that they made a conscious decision to list the number of US fatalities and successful Iraqi suicide bombings, but I'm sure he just forgot to mention it. Because I've seen the show -- I read the newspaper, and I listen to the radio -- and this is what I see, time after time.
An unbiased show, over months of reporting, would have found time to share some of the positive things happening in Iraq. They could have featured a shopkeeper who was able to restart his store. A group of entrepreneurs starting new businesses. Service projects undertaken by soldiers in their free time. Families reunited as imprisoned political dissidents are released.
But instead, night after night, we hear a litany of destruction and tragedy.
Provo is a nice place to live -- consistently voted as one of the best places to live, in fact, in America. (Well, the Provo-Orem Metroplex.) But have you looked at the FBI crime data for this seemingly peaceful community?
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Murder: 0
Forcible Rape: 36
Robbery: 16
Aggravated Assault: 62
Burglary: 841
Larceny or Theft: 2,492
Car Theft: 179
Arson: 18
Data Source:
2003 FBI Report of Offenses Known to Law Enforcement
Zero values may indicate the data was not available.
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What if Nightline started listing all the crimes that took place in Provo, Utah? Every night. We could have a grave Ted Koppel somberly reading out the names of everyone vicitimzed the previous night. That would finally present America with the unbiased view of Provo that we really need to make intelligent decisions.