Shales Skewers ‘Sallow Shallow’ ‘Nightline’

Tom Shales didn’t like Nightline when it premiered a quarter century ago. And he doesn’t like it now. Today’s review, after waiting a couple of weeks for the new trio of anchors to settle in, is more disappointed than scathing, although he certainly doesn’t pull any punches:

“ABC’s ‘Nightline’ might as well be retitled ‘Night Light,’ but not because it’s illuminating. No. The late-night news program now is simply more about style than content, and the style isn’t all that special,” he starts.

“It should please [Ted Koppel] that it’s taken three people to replace him since he left the show last month and even then, the roster seems deficient,” he continues.

Shales reserves special disgust for the silly segment at the end of the show entitled “Sign of the Times,” which he says generally aren’t at all: “As with many of the segments that have aired during the post-Koppel program’s first two weeks, these closing pieces were utterly devoid of substance and sometimes surprisingly unsophisticated.”

“The three-anchor format, meanwhile, is mainly just irritating. You never know who’ll pop up from where after a commercial break. It would be nice to see the anchors side by side in the same room once in a while; otherwise, it appears they aren’t on speaking terms.”

Shales concludes: “As much as one might be rooting for ABC News to hang on to the time period and not surrender it to the entertainment division, however, ‘Nightline’ has to improve for it to have real value. If not ‘Night Light,’ then it’s ‘Night-Lite,’ a sallow shallow shadow of its former splendid self.”

Of course Shales lived to eat his words on his review–let’s all hope he gets to make the same mistake twice….

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