Good Night, Ted
Meet the new generation of Nightline

This week Ted Koppel signed off of ABC's Nightline for the final time. Starting Monday the torch will be passed to a new generation of anchors for the respected late-night news show: White House correspondent Terry Moran, Primetime's Cynthia McFadden, and Martin Bashir, the British TV journalist who made his name in the U.S. with his explosive 2003 documentary about troubled pop superstar Michael Jackson. So what will the new Nightline look like? The Biz asked executive producer James Goldston.

TVGuide.com: In recent years, Nightline has often been taped earlier in the evening, but you're going to be live every night. Why do you feel it is necessary to go live again?
Goldston: It's a nightly broadcast that makes a point of analyzing what's going on in the world in [the most] informative way possible. For me, that means doing it live. Why wouldn't a show like this be live?

TVGuide.com: Ted's producers said it became difficult to book guests so late at night. Do you foresee that being a problem?
Goldston: It may be. If they have something to say, they will stay up late. That doesn't mean we won't do a prerecorded news piece. Clearly there will be times when that becomes necessary, but [we'll tape segments] as few times as possible. In a sense, I'm taking the show back to where Ted started. The show was live for many years. I feel that gives it an energy and vibrancy that is very youthful. And the viewers can tell the difference when it's live, always.

TVGuide.com: That's true.
Goldston: It's not in any way to imply criticism to what Ted [and his team] did. They are the finest journalists of their generation or any other. But given the way we are changing the show — it's becoming a multi-topic show that will react to things going on right up to the time we're on air. It would not be possible to do anything other than live in the way I'm approaching the show.

TVGuide.com: What else will we notice that's different about Nightline when we tune in on Nov. 28?
Goldston: Nightline distinguishes itself from every other show in broadcast television by the quality of its journalism and its willingness to do stories abroad and the stories other people aren't doing. As always, Nightline will remain a place where you'll see stories that you just won't see anywhere else. Clearly there will be presentational differences: The show will be based in part in Times Square, which at 11:35 at night is probably one of the most exciting places on Earth. It will convey the kind of energy we try to bring to our journalism.

TVGuide.com: What do each of the anchors bring to the table?
Goldston: Clearly, they all have distinctive personalities — [that is] the reason I've chose the three of them. Terry is the smartest guy in the room. He comes from an analytical perspective. He's very well versed in the ways of Washington. He clearly brings a little bit of that to what he's doing. Cynthia is a tremendous interviewer. She looks at things in a forensic way but with heart as well. She brings a very human dimension to her reporting. Martin is our investigative guy. He digs under the surface to get to the real story. He is one of the world's foremost interviewers. He's become very famous for some of those interviews.

TVGuide.com: So I've heard.
Goldston: Exactly. But there is much more to Martin than that handful of extraordinary interviews. All his roots are in investigative journalism. That's what he'll bring to the table. In a slightly perverse way, he's become incredibly famous for what are regarded as popular interviews.

TVGuide.com: So the audience will learn he's an investigative guy and not a tabloid guy.
Goldston: He's not a tabloid guy in any sense and the audience will come to learn that about him. I wouldn't describe his Princess Diana interview as tabloid in any sense.

TVGuide.com: There are some times when a so-called tabloid story is what people want to know about at 11:35. Will Martin be the go-to guy for those occasions?
Goldston: Not necessarily. We won't shy away from doing those stories. We'll only do them if we can do them in a Nightline way and in a way in which we can bring distinction to them. There are certain tabloid stories that aren't appropriate for Nightline, like Natalee Holloway in Aruba. That's a very good example of a story we wouldn't do.... It's been covered kind of wall-to-wall because of the personal tragedy of it, but it doesn't raise those big questions, which is what Nightline is all about.