At Newsmags, Aiming Straight For the Eyes

"Ted is a self-described Luddite," says Tom Bettag, his longtime producer. "He would always say, 'Don't tell me about this new media stuff; it's not my world.' "

But Koppel agreed to take the plunge after potential advertisers, including a major automaker, told him they needed an online outlet if they were going to support his programming, Bettag says.

In a dry run with questions from Discovery staffers, the shirt-sleeve Koppel is more serious than chatty. He talks about whether America has ever been more divided (yes, in the McCarthy era), Kim Jong Il ("controls the single most totalitarian regime in the world") and the most under-covered parts of the globe (China and India).

"We thought the man who has done such a great job of interviewing would be a great person for other people to ask questions," says Don Baer, a Discovery senior executive vice president.

In an e-mail response -- itself a major sign of progress -- Koppel said he was unaware of plans for the home webcam and confessed that his initial answers were provided the old-fashioned way: "A camera person comes to my office and asks questions. Is that cheating?"

Surfing's Up

The online news audience is aging a bit.

Thirty-one percent of people aged 50 to 64 now say they get news from the Internet at least three days a week, compared with 19 percent in 2000, according to the Pew Research Center. By contrast, the percentage of 18-to-24-year-olds in that category has remained flat at 30 percent.

Newspapers, particularly national ones, are getting an online boost. While 40 percent of those surveyed said they read a paper yesterday, the number bumps up to 43 percent when newspaper Web sites are included (but remains below the 50 percent daily readership of a decade ago).

Still, only a minority of those who get news online are visiting newspaper sites. The majority, Pew says, prefer the likes of MSNBC, CNN and Yahoo, which specialize in quick updates of major headlines.

Interesting tidbit: While the percentage of those who say they regularly listen to National Public Radio has doubled since 1994, that audience now tilts more to the left, with nearly twice as many Democrats (23 percent) as Republicans (13 percent).

Unintentional Epitaph

"Kenny Boy Gets His" -- cover headline in the July issue of Texas Monthly, published shortly before Ken Lay's death.