Nightline's choice - Brief Article - Review

Veteran anchor Ted Koppel talks about ABC News's upcoming five-part series on gay life, "A Matter of Choice?"--which already has some activists riled

A full two months before it is scheduled to air (September 28 and October 2-5), ABC News Nightline's monumental five-part series on gay life in America is already in hot water. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has objected to a press release about the series describing gay pride parades as "exhibitionist" and to the series's title, "A Matter of Choice?"

For Ted Koppel, Nightline's well-known anchor since its inception, such conflict is as old as the show's 21 years. "It is `A Matter of Choice?'--question mark," he says. "As far as the whole of the country is concerned, that is the central question: Is there something genetic that makes you gay and me heterosexual? I'm inclined to believe so, only because I can't imagine someone would voluntarily put themselves in the extraordinary pain that's involved in being a young gay person. I can't believe people are doing it just because it looks like more fun. So I do come into this with a bias of my own, but I do understand that, absent scientific proof, there has to be a question mark at the end."

Question mark or not, the evocation of choice "gets the publicity for the series off on the wrong foot," counters GLAAD news media director Cathy Renna. "The series is about gay and lesbian life in America, and the title misrepresents not just the content of the series but the nature of our understanding of sexual orientation." Packaging aside, GLAAD has great hopes for the program. "Everything we have been told about the show points to a groundbreaking piece of journalism," Renna says.

Indeed, Koppel seems to thrive when breaking ground on the complicated issues that network television increasingly eschews in favor of lighter or more sensationalistic fare. "Your skin toughens up over 40 years in this business," he says without a hint of weariness. "That's what it takes to get a series like this done."

When I arrive at his modest office at ABC's bureau in downtown Washington, D.C., Koppel is hunched over his computer screen, writing the script for another series on the war in Congo, which has taken 3 million lives in the last four years. Within minutes he is seated in an easy chair, excitedly recounting the making of what promises to be one of the most ambitious reports on American gay life ever presented on network television.

The series opens with a retirement village near Bradenton, Fla., that caters to gay men and lesbians. The location then shifts to Roanoke, a small city in southwestern Virginia. Last year Ronald Gay walked into a Roanoke gay bar, the Backstreet Cafe, and opened fire, killing one and wounding six. But instead of focusing on the murderous rampage, Koppel chronicles the more everyday aspects of gay life in small-town America. The series concludes with a roundtable discussion moderated by Koppel.

From its inception, Koppel and two of his top producers set out to distinguish the series from most reporting on gay issues. "People tend to talk about gay and lesbian issues only when related to AIDS or a hate crime," he says. "The mainstream press has not focused on the vast majority of gay people who live ordinary lives but [on] who have extraordinary stories to tell. The news media in general tends to seize on the Houston mother who murdered her kids, or the Chandra Levy case, and beat that sucker to death. These stories we're doing require a little more effort."

Koppel says journalists who rely on the urban gay enclaves of San Francisco, New York, and Chicago for their sources have overlooked gay communities in small and medium-size towns like Roanoke. "We thought Roanoke might prove a perfect capsule because it's neither the best nor the worst place for gays," he explains. "Ironically, it is seen as something of a shelter for those who live in the outlying areas. Yes, they are a little tight here, they told us, mostly Southern Baptists, but overall, it's a wonderful place. After the shooting, [national] gay activists started coming around. They were very helpful, but they were pushing the locals to make more of it. The local community said, `Yes, this is a hate crime, but Ronald Gay did not even come from Roanoke. He was an out-of-towner.' The mayor himself is a Southern Baptist who doesn't approve of homosexuality, but he examined his conscience and showed up at a candlelight vigil for the victims. In the end, everyone came together."

Asked about his description of gay pride parades as "exhibitionist," he responds by comparing gays and lesbians to African-Americans. "This is a function of any group that has confronted prejudice. Every community is split between those who say `We are going to shove this down people's throats because they are never going to give us anything' and the others who say `Don't piss people off. Things are bad enough as it is, and you are just going to make things worse.' How can you depict that vast majority of the African-American community as quiet, hardworking people who would never dream of marching anywhere or picketing any store?" he asks. "And yet these people will be the first who say if it were not for Jesse Jackson and others like him who will picket at the drop of a hat, they would be nowhere."

Koppel, who was among the first network journalists to report on AIDS in 1983, says he learned more about gay life from his interviews for "A Matter of Choice?" than from any other show in his long career. "I've been more enlightened these last months by people telling me personal stories," he says. "Some are uplifting, some quietly sad, and some tragic. I talked to a young high school student in Roanoke who was so alone that she started cutting herself. The fact is that most schools don't have someone set to deal with kids like this. Kids need someone to turn to. I think that will move Americans. Even those who are homophobic should understand that someone has got to reach out to these children."

COPYRIGHT 2001 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group