Editing Nightline (section)

==== Memorable subjects ====
During Ted Koppel's tenure as anchor (and on rare occasions since his departure), ''Nightline'' devoted each episode to a unique subject. Since its inception, the program has covered many subjects ([[science]], [[education]], [[politics]], [[economics]], [[society]], and [[breaking news]]). Many candidates for government offices, such as [[David Duke]] (in November 1991) have appeared on ''Nightline'' to try to promote themselves. Seeing that there are a large number of prisons in the United States, it created an ongoing series in 1994 called "Crime and Punishment".  The program also aired a series of episodes called "America: In Black and White" dealing with individual aspects of American race relations, and another on homosexuality titled "A Matter of Choice?".

Over the years, ''Nightline'' had a number of technological firsts. The program did the first live report from the base of [[Mount Everest]]. In November 1992, science reporter Michael Guillen did the first live broadcast from [[Antarctica]]. There were times when a major breaking news story occurred as late as 11:00&nbsp;p.m. Eastern Time, resulting in the subject of that night's edition being changed in order to cover the story in some form of detail, depending on the depth of information available at the time of broadcast. Examples of this were the deaths of [[John Lennon]] ([[Death of John Lennon|1980]]) and [[Yasser Arafat]] (2004).

''Nightline'' also held a series of [[town hall meeting]]s; these included the Israeli-Palestinian Town Meeting in 1987, one with [[Nelson Mandela]] on June 21, 1990, and one discussing the [[Iraq War|War in Iraq]] in 2003. The first such "Town Meeting", in 1987, was an extended edition (running for four hours and 12 minutes, until 3:47&nbsp;a.m. Eastern Time, on the night of its broadcast) discussing the [[AIDS]] epidemic of that period in the U.S. A major portion of the episode was devoted to interviews where important people were asked tough questions on the spot. Another series of town hall meetings featured public discussions and appearances by Japanese officials on the poor performance of American business during the 1980s, contrasted with the success of Japanese businesses. These town hall meetings coincided with the [[Japanese asset price bubble|corporate takeovers of U.S. companies by Japanese corporations]] during the early 1990s (such as [[MCA Inc.|MCA]] by [[Panasonic|Matsushita]], and [[Sony Music|CBS Records]] and [[Columbia Pictures]] by [[Sony|Sony Corporation]]).

What had been intended to be a benign episode dedicated to the 40th anniversary of [[Jackie Robinson]] breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier ended up being remembered for one of the show's controversial moments. The April 6, [[1987 in television|1987]] broadcast included longtime [[Los Angeles Dodgers]] executive [[Al Campanis]], who had been with the franchise since before Robinson's debut. When Ted Koppel asked Campanis about why there were so few [[African Americans|black]] [[Manager (baseball)|field managers]] or [[General manager (baseball)|general managers]] in the sport, Campanis responded awkwardly, saying that blacks may lack the "necessities" to succeed in those positions. Despite Koppel offering Campanis numerous chances to clarify or retract his remark (asking Campanis several times "Do you really believe that?"), Campanis' subsequent responses only worsened his position.  Koppel ultimately scolded Campanis on-air for proposing the "same kind of garbage" that Robinson's critics and skeptics had peddled in 1947.  Shortly after the interview, the [[1987 Los Angeles Dodgers season|Dodgers]] fired Campanis.

Later in 1987, the program broadcast an exclusive interview with televangelists [[Jim Bakker|Jim]] and [[Tammy Faye Bakker]], following the former's sex scandal that brought down their PTL ministry. On December 3, 1990, ''Nightline'' played [[Madonna]]'s controversial [[music video]] "[[Justify My Love (video)|Justify My Love]]" in its entirety, then interviewed Madonna live about the video's sexual content and censorship. The video contained imagery of [[sadomasochism]], [[voyeurism]] and [[bisexuality]]. When asked whether she stood to make more money selling the video than airing it on [[MTV]], she shrugged and answered, "Yeah, so? Lucky me." She also mentioned that the banning was hypocritical, as male artists were able to show music videos on the channel which contained sexist and violent imagery. She also mentioned that in her "[[Vogue (Madonna song)|Vogue]]" music video she had worn a see-through lace top which exposed her breasts, but this was passed by the channel.<ref>{{cite episode|title=Nightline|episode-link=Nightline (US news program)|credits=Interviewer: [[Forrest Sawyer]]|network=[[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]|airdate=December 3, 1990}} {{youTube|Xgfw0l-Rn5A}}. Retrieved on 2008-12-26.</ref><ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite magazine|title=Madonna Banned|url=https://ew.com/article/1998/11/20/justify-my-love-was-too-raunchy-1990/|author=Joshua Rich|magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]]|publisher=EW.com|date=November 20, 1998|access-date=August 31, 2010|archive-date=May 21, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130521191755/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,285759,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1997, ''Nightline'' aired "ABC Exclusive" footage of the trial of former [[Cambodia]]n dictator [[Pol Pot]], in [[Nate Thayer#Nightline controversy|violation of a verbal agreement]] between ABC News and [[freelancer|freelance journalist]] [[Nate Thayer]] to use the footage of Pot's trial.<ref>{{cite news|title=Your scoop? Nah. It's ours if we want it.|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/your-scoop-nah-its-ours-if-we-want-it-1157187.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220621/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/your-scoop-nah-its-ours-if-we-want-it-1157187.html |archive-date=2022-06-21 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|author=Paul McCann|work=[[The Independent]]|date=May 25, 1998}}</ref> Thayer later sued Koppel and ABC News for $30 million in [[punitive damages]] and unspecified [[compensatory damages]].