Ted Koppel

According to the Newsweek magazine "the smartest man in television", Ted Koppel is coming to Ball State University to speak tomorrow. I actually am pretty excited to see Koppel after doing a little research about him. I enjoy public speakers, because they are unique and have a special talent. I love listening to their story, and how they did what they did. Koppel has many accomplishments such as; winning 41 Emmy Awards, 11 George Foster Peabody Awards, 12 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards, 10 Overseas Press Club Awards, 2 George Polk Awards and 2 Sigma Delta Chi Awards, the latter the highest honor bestowed for public service by the Society of Professional Journalists.
After reading a little bit on Koppel from The New York Times, NPR, and Faigely. My favorite piece that really left me thinking was “Breaking Point” from The Discovery Channel. It is really something how he can compared two completely different things and make people think twice about them. It does not seem right that a prisoner in California and a student at Harvard University, cost just about the same. This makes me think what is wrong with our country that we have prisons overfilling, while students are denied the education for financial reasoning. This statics really jumped out at me, “Designed to accommodate no more than 100,000 inmates, California’s prisons now hold 173,000, each at an annual cost of $43,000.” (“Koppel”). What needs to be done to change this static? How do we condense the overcrowded prisons, and why is Harvard so darn expensive?! =)

--Works Cited--

“Koppel.” T. Breaking Point. The Discovery Channel. 22 Feb. 2010.

“Waite.” C. Ted Koppel. The Museum of Broadcast Communications. 22 Feb. 2010. Web Image.