People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media.
Ted Koppel

I have the necessary lack of tact.
Ted Koppel

To call something an 'enhanced interrogation technique' doesn't alter the fact that we thought it was torture when the Japanese used it on American prisoners, we thought it was torture when the North Koreans used it, we thought it was torture when the Soviets used it. You know, it's almost the moral equivalent of saying that rape is an enhanced seduction technique.
Ted Koppel

The responsibility that I feel is to do as good a job as a journalist as I can possibly do.
Ted Koppel

Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach.
Ted Koppel

My function is, as objectively and accurately as I can, to present reality to people out there, and doing that as quickly as we do is quite difficult enough, thank you.
Ted Koppel

There is no more respected or influential forum in the field of journalism than the New York Times. I look forward, with great anticipation, to contributing to its op-ed page.
Ted Koppel

There is something very very special, universal and easily identifiable among all Jews; it is beyond territory, it is something we all have in common.
Ted Koppel