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Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Nightline' looks back on its 45 years in anniversary episode
It's been 45 years since ABC News' iconic late-night show "Nightline" debuted on March 24, 1980. To celebrate the occasion on Monday, past and present anchors dive into its history and enduring appeal in a special episode. The seeds for the show were sown in November 1979, when then-ABC News President Roone Arledge created "The Iran Crisis–America Held Hostage" to cover the aftermath of the infamous terrorist attack on the United States embassy in Tehran. Watch the 45th anniversary episode of "Nightline" late-night Monday, March 24, from 12:35 a.m. to 1:05 a.m. ET and streaming the next day on Hulu. By the time the hostage crisis ended, resulting in their release 444 days later, "Nightline" and anchor Tep Koppel had forged an important relationship with the American public. He served as the show's host until 2005. "Every night, Ted Koppel came on and did something that you'd never seen before," ABC News' Terry Moran, who anchored the show from 2005 to 2013, said of its early days. That became a hallmark of the program -- bringing people who are worlds apart together for town hall-style conversations. "The Iranian ambassador and the Iraqi ambassador; they wouldn't talk to each other, but they talked to me," Koppel said. MORE: About ABC News Live Since then, "Nightline" has never shied away from complicated conversations. That included going to South Africa during the era of apartheid -- the system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed there from the late '40s to the early '90s. "If I had to point to one group of broadcasts as being the most significant out of 6,000 that I did over 25 years, I think I'd have to pick that one," Koppel said of the 1985 reports. Those stories happened in the U.S. as well, with Cynthia McFadden (who co-anchored the show from 2005 to 2014) recalling her 2012 reporting on resurgent white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan. "The experience of being at a cross burning was literally seared into me. I will never forget that day," she said. "If you thought that that kind of hate was over, we had the opportunity to show America that it was not." "Nightline" has also examined American life through the cultural lens, sometimes taking a lighter approach to heavy topics. That included bringing Kermit the Frog and his fellow Muppets on set to discuss complexities of the 1987 stock market crash. "When the Muppets came in, I mean, people came from every office, all over the New York headquarters to meet the Muppets," Koppel said. "They wanted to watch that interview. You know, 'How is Ted going to handle the frog?'" MORE: Aaron Brown, veteran ABC News anchor, dies at 76 Anchors like Juju Chang, who has shared anchoring duties with Byron Pitts since 2014, appreciate that the job lets them report from the field. "I'd rather be sweating out in the street somewhere and covering a story and looking somebody in the eye and hearing their story and trying to tell it," she said. Pitts noted that the show endures by staying true to its original mission: offering Americans a way to stay informed as their day draws to a close. "Nightline is a place where the country can show up together and hear the truth," he said. "We provide context and clarity and comfort for the nation. And who doesn't want that before they go to sleep?" ABC News' Kelsey Klimara and Mack Muldofsky also contributed to this report. 'Nightline' looks back on its 45 years in anniversary episode originally appeared on
Express Tribune
02-03-2025
- Sport
- Express Tribune
September 5: The true story behind the Oscar-nominated film about the 1972 Olympics
The Oscar-nominated thriller September 5 is based on the real-life events from the 1972 Munich Olympics, where Palestinian fighters from the Black September Organization (BSO) took 11 Israeli athletes hostage. The Black September Organization, a militant group founded in 1970, attempted to secure the release of over 300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. The group killed two athletes immediately and held the remaining nine as hostages. After a failed rescue attempt by German police, the BSO executed all the hostages, with five of the eight fighters later being killed. The film focuses on the role of ABC Sports, led by Roone Arledge (played by Peter Sarsgaard), in covering the attack live. As events unfolded, sportscaster Jim McKay famously announced, "They're all gone." Arledge's decision to air the coverage in real-time marked a turning point in the channel's history, with ABC winning 29 Emmy Awards for its reporting. September 5 also follows the network's behind-the-scenes struggles, including the ethical dilemma of broadcasting the developments during a global sporting event. The real Geoffrey Mason, played by John Magaro, was head of the control room during the crisis, helping secure access for ABC journalists inside the Olympic Village. Fifty years since, the attack remains one of the most prominent moments in Olympic history, and Germany officially apologised to the victims' families in 2022.
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Whose story? New Oscar nominated film September 5 evokes the tension and dilemmas of live crisis reporting
In a darkened broadcasting control room, a team of sports journalists covering the 1972 Munich Olympics for ABC television realise to their horror that they have been thrust entirely unprepared into covering a terrifying global news event: a hostage crisis in the Olympic village that would come to be known as the Munich massacre. The Munich Games were already a broadcasting landmark: the first time people on five continents could watch the Olympics live. But it also became the first time a terrorist attack would unfold live in front of a global television audience in real time, with all the ethical and practical dilemmas that entailed. The journalists' predicaments and groundbreaking efforts are depicted in September 5, a new film that provides a fresh perspective on the production and consumption of news content. Journalism is one of the more oft-portrayed professions on the big screen. Hollywood's fascination with the work of real-life reporters has given us countless classics, including All the President's Men (1976), The Insider (1999), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Spotlight (2015) and The Post (2017), along with more recent films, such as She Said (2022). From left, Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge, Ben Chaplin as Marvin Bader and John Magaro as Geoff Mason But while films about journalists have typically focused on the intrigue of investigative reporting or the risks undertaken by frontline war correspondents, few movies have examined the challenges and dilemmas of live broadcasting, when journalists are forced to make razor-thin decisions about how to cover an unfolding news story under immense pressure. September 5 therefore offers a rare insight into the media, conveying the white-knuckle drama of live news from within a broadcast control room as the ABC reporters, editors and producers grapple with an urgent cascade of moral and logistical challenges. Tim Fehlbaum, the film's director and co-writer, explains why he wanted the film to focus on the quandaries the journalists faced: 'We seek to raise ethical questions – which are as germane now as they were then – about the responsibilities and impacts of crisis reporting and our consumption of it.' September 5 recounts the decisions and actions of the ABC sports team after Palestinian terrorists from the Black September group killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team and took another nine of its athletes hostage. The ABC team, suddenly responsible for the subsequent 22 hours of live coverage, included legendary TV executive Roone Arledge (played by Peter Sarsgaard), producer Geoff Mason (played by John Magaro), and his mentor Marvin Bader (played by Ben Chaplin). September 5 evokes the heated atmosphere in the control room as groundbreaking decisions are made The frantic intensity of their challenge is compounded by the film-makers' decision to set September 5 almost entirely in the control room and studio. The chaos of the day's events is seen entirely from the journalists' point of view, evoking the heated drama and tension. 'The audience should experience the intensity of the live coverage with the characters, and be there when moral decisions have to be made against the backdrop of a constantly ticking clock,' says Fehlbaum. The film, which has been nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay, ramps up the immersive experience by cleverly incorporating the original ABC footage. It was even played on the monitors in the control room during filming, which means that the actors were reacting in real time to the authentic ABC footage instead of performing against green screens. 'Working with the real footage was a total gamechanger,' says Magaro. 'It was like another cast member.' The film-makers used original blueprints to reconstruct the control room and restored vintage equipment sourced from collectors and museums Indeed, part of what makes September 5 so striking is the way its insights into journalism are combined with its painstaking approach to recreating the analogue technology that the ABC team used. The film-makers reconstructed the control room using the original blueprints and restored the vintage equipment, sourced from collectors and museums, to working order. The technological challenges are central to the story – whether the journalists are trying to install a bulky studio camera opposite the apartment where the hostages are being held, or smuggling 16mm film reels in and out of the cordoned-off Olympic village by taping them to the torso of ABC employee Gary Slaughter (played by Daniel Adeosun), who disguises himself as a member of the US track team. The technology is also central to the dilemmas the journalists confront, such as what can be shown live on air, and what happens if their broadcasts start influencing actual events – for instance when their live footage of a rescue attempt by West German police is watched on a TV set by the terrorists. Daniel Adeosun as Gary Slaughter, who taped film reels to his torso to smuggle them in and out of the Olympic village It's as if each technical solution the journalists devise throws up new ethical questions – questions that feel equally pertinent in today's digital news era. As Chaplin's character says in the film: 'Black September know the whole world is watching ... If they shoot someone on live television, whose story is that – is it ours or is it theirs?' ________________________ Peter Sarsgaard (plays Roone Arledge)Sarsgaard recently starred alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in the TV series Presumed Innocent. He was nominated for an Emmy for his role alongside Michael Keaton in the TV series Dopesick. Last year, he won the Coppa Volpi at the 80th Mostra in Venice for Best Actor for his performance in Michel Franco's Memory (2023). In September 5, he plays Roone Arledge, the president of ABC Sports at that time. Arledge is considered the inventor and formative pioneer of modern sports reporting, and was declared one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine. John Magaro (Geoff Mason)Magaro most recently appeared in Celine Song's Past Lives (2023) and Tolga Karaçelik's The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer (2024). His filmography also includes The Big Short (2015) and Carol (2015). This year, he will appear alongside his September 5 co-star Sarsgaard, Christian Bale and Penélope Cruz in Maggie Gyllenhaal's Frankenstein story The Bride (2025). In September 5 he plays Geoff Mason, an up-and-coming producer at the time of the Munich Olympics whose career in sports broadcasting went on to include seven Olympics, six World Cups, multiple America's Cup races and Björn Borg v John McEnroe at Wimbledon. He won 26 Emmy awards and was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. From top left: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch and Tim Fehlbaum Ben Chaplin (Marvin Bader)Chaplin has played a journalist before, in the BBC drama series Press (2018). His most recent work includes the TV series The Nevers and the Netflix film The Dig (2021). He also appeared on the big screen in the Ian McEwan adaptation The Children Act (2017). After rising to fame in the comedy The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996) alongside Uma Thurman, he has appeared in a host of films including Oliver Stone's Snowden (2016) and Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998). In September 5, he plays Marvin Bader, who oversaw 10 Olympics productions between 1968 and 1992, created the modern accreditation system for sports crews, and was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. He was known for staying on top of the details and being the voice of reason in difficult situations – attributes that come to the fore in September 5. Leonie Benesch (Marianne Gebhardt)Benesch is one of Germany's most sought-after actors. She had her breakthrough with one of the leading roles in Michael Haneke's feature film The White Ribbon (2009), which won the Palme d'Or in Cannes. She also starred in the Netflix series The Crown and the German-French-Italian series Around the World in 80 Days alongside David Tennant. She won the German Film Award for Best Actress for her role in Ilker Çatak's The Teachers' Lounge. In September 5, she plays a fictional character Marianne Gebhardt, a German translator for the ABC sports crew, who is based on several people who were in the control room at the time. As well as relaying crucial updates from West German police, she provides context about the Munich Olympics and its importance to postwar Germany. Tim Fehlbaum (director, screenwriter, producer)Swiss director Fehlbaum made his feature film debut with the bleak post-apocalyptic thriller Hell, for which he also co-wrote the screenplay. His 2021 science-fiction thriller film Tides premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Berlinale Special section and subsequently won several awards, including four German Film Awards. SEPTEMBER 5 In cinemas February 6 Discover more and watch the trailer #September5Movie
