Analysis
ABC's 'Nightline' gives war 721 faces

By Alessandra Stanley
The New York Times

Ted Koppel

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The decision by "Nightline" on ABC to devote Friday's broadcast to reciting the names of all the troops killed in Iraq seemed like such a huge, grandstanding gesture, until it actually began. Once the names and faces of the dead began rolling, so quickly, across the screen, the program became a small, quiet thing — a fleeting, moving and inadequate tribute tucked between the evening news and "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

When the plan was announced last week, many conservatives denounced it as a liberal ruse to undermine the Bush administration's war effort while maintaining a holier-than-thou pose of patriotism. The Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the country's largest owners of local television stations, pre-empted the broadcast from its eight stations, saying the program amounted to an anti-war statement.

Not all conservatives agreed. "Your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war's terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wrote in a letter to the chief executive of Sinclair.

Whatever the producers' motives, giving a face and a name to each of the 721 dead who had been identified at that moment could hardly be described as sedition.

ABC allowed the broadcast, titled "The Fallen," to run 10 minutes longer than its regular 30-minute time slot so that all the names of those who died could be included.

The program ran without commercials and was interrupted only by public-service advertisements. There was very little to it, just the portraits of the dead, some in dress uniform, some in fatigues, a few in tuxedos from their high-school-yearbook pictures, and their names, intoned slowly and carefully by Ted Koppel.

The portraits were shown two at a time, just enough to register a name, an age, and shock at how young — and how old — some were. All generations have lost some of their own — the death count spans Army Spec. Michael Mihalakis, 18, to Sgt. Floyd Knighten Jr., 55.

When "Nightline" could not get a portrait, the show ran a Department of Defense photograph of flag-covered coffins at Dover Air Force Base, one of many such images that were published over the objections of the Bush administration.

Koppel began the broadcast with a brief, solemn disclaimer: "This was never intended to be about us." His words suggested a naiveté that is rarely associated with the cerebral, urbane ABC anchorman. Its ratings may be low, but the show's reputation guaranteed that the decision would be studied, debated and passionately contested.
 
Koppel said in interviews that he was inspired by a spread in a 1969 Life magazine that showed the portraits of all those who had died in Vietnam in one week.

Skeptics, regardless of their views on the war in Iraq, could be forgiven for wondering if Koppel was reaching for Walter Cronkite stature — history has recorded the moment when the CBS anchorman declared the Vietnam War a failure on the evening news as a turning point in public opinion.

It was hard to dismiss as coincidence the fact that "The Fallen" was shown on the eve of May 1, the first anniversary of the day that President Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and declared that major combat in Iraq was over beneath a sign that read, "Mission Accomplished."

Koppel's blinkered self-regard was the only awkward moment in a program that was kind, respectful and all too rare. After reading the last name, Koppel added "a closing thought," which turned out to be many words of lofty explanation that mostly signaled his indignation that his motives were questioned.

"The Fallen" would have been even better if Koppel had closed with the troops' sacrifice, and not his own honor.