BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. On Tuesday, in New Hampshire, the nine Democratic presidential candidates gathered for another televised debate -- the last before the Iowa Caucus --and the first to be aired, albeit in edited form, on a broadcast network -- ABC. Not surprisingly, the candidates made little news, but quite surprisingly, the moderator, Nightline's Ted Koppel, did.

TED KOPPEL: ...raising money, so I would like all of you up here, including you, Governor Dean, to raise your hand if you believe that Governor Dean can beat George W. Bush. [LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE]

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Koppel's focus on former Vice President Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean and some of the other candidates' poor showing in the polls, drew righteous indignation from both the debaters and the audience, leading to the charge that the media were rushing to judgment ahead of the voters. ABC's Ted Koppel joins us now. Thanks for coming on.

TED KOPPEL: I'm glad to do it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Dick Gephardt's comment immediately after the debate was that it was, quote, "a bit heavy on process." Why did you decide on this approach for the last debate before the primaries?

TED KOPPEL: Because I went through the transcripts of many of the previous 25 or 26 debates, when they were asked about every conceivable subject in the world and managed to be -- let's put it charitably -- less interesting than they might have been. And the fact that we were focusing on process had something to do with the fact also, of course, that Al Gore had just changed the picture of what was happening by coming out in favor of Governor Dean, so it seemed to me that polls and money was the story of the day, and since I've been a reporter for more than 40 years, somehow the story holds a lot of sway with me.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But is a debate the place to put the story of the day? Do you think process questions are more likely to keep people awake?

TED KOPPEL:A) I think it is more likely to keep people awake, and B) have you seen any debates yet? I mean I remember a debate being between two people arguing about a particular subject. When you have nine people on a stage, and then you have two moderators -- and remember this is a format that was picked, not by us, but by the Democratic National Committee and by staffers from the nine candidates -- you're not going to have a debate. You're lucky to have a conversation.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Well, that's true, but if this is an opportunity for the American people to get to know the candidates, do you think you do that by focusing so much time on the process and the horse race, which is more of an obsession, perhaps, of reporters?

TED KOPPEL: Let me just, with all deference, beg to differ with you. I think that when you talk about "the process" and when you hear the candidates talking about the process, I mean it's like the policeman at Rick's Place in Casablanca --you know, God forbid, gambling? Here? Process? You mean talking about the accumulation of money and standing in the polls? We couldn't care less about that. That's only the filthy media that worries about those kinds of things. These people are more worried about process than anybody else is.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:One of the moments in the debate that has been played over and over in the last few days is Dennis Kucinich reprimanding you after you asked if he and Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely Braun were running vanity campaigns.

DENNIS KUCINICH: Well I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country. [SHOUTS, APPLAUSE, CHEERS] You start with endorsements-- You start, you start talking, you start talking about endorsements; now we're talking about polls, and then we're talking about money. Well, you know, when you do that you don't have to talk about what's important to the American people.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:It seems that the public agreed with Kucinich that people don't care as much about the horse race as reporters do, and to coin a phrase that I think you may have put to Michael Dukakis some years ago, is it possible that you still don't get it?

TED KOPPEL: Maybe it is. Maybe it's possible that I still don't get it, but they have had ample opportunity during the debates to deal with subject matter, to deal with any number of issues, and what they do is they tend to repeat the same pat little phrases over and over and over again.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Were you surprised at the reaction in the hall and the commentary that followed? I know you weren't surprised by the reaction of the candidates.

TED KOPPEL: Not at all. I, I mean first of all you have to understand that the audience was made up entirely of supporters of the nine people on the stage, so the fact that they weren't too happy with it doesn't surprise me in the least.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But it seems that Ted Koppel was the big story that came out of it. Isn't it a little uncomfortable being the story?

TED KOPPEL:Did I feel uncomfortable with that? No. I mean would I have felt more uncomfortable if at the end people had told me what, what a totally uninteresting session it was? Yes. I mean to a certain degree, I have a responsibility to try to get these candidates to say something they haven't said before. How outrageous is it to have asked the candidates to raise their hands if they thought that Howard Dean could beat George Bush? And none of them did. I think that says something about their feelings toward the man who is, after all, at the moment the leading candidate of the Democratic Party. And to then get into the question of why they feel that way -- I don't think that's inappropriate. I really don't.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Are the media taking it too much upon themselves to narrow the field before the first vote has been cast?

TED KOPPEL:Oh, look. It's not up to me to narrow the field, but it is up to me to ask questions, and if the question cuts a little close to the bone, I can't help that. But the question can't be asked? Where is, you know, where is that written -- that there are certain questions we can't ask?

BROOKE GLADSTONE:But in terms of narrowing the field, we hear now that ABC has pulled its full time reporters from the Kucinich, Sharpton and Mosely Braun campaigns. The Kucinich Campaign website says the move, quote, "dis-empowers voters, telling them that someone other than them is deciding elections, and that their votes don't mean much." There are some people who would like Kucinich to be president. Shouldn't his campaign merit continued coverage, at least until the primary is over?

TED KOPPEL: Well, I must tell you, if I had had anything to do with making the decision, I would have recommended that it not be made just after the kind of exchange that Congressman Kucinich and I had. The decision, I am told, was actually made the day before the debate. No one saw fit to tell me about it. But there is nothing that obliges ABC News or any other news organization to have people on a daily basis traveling with a campaign when it does cost a fair amount of money and when the conclusion has been reached that those three campaigns are not, at the moment, catching fire.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ted Koppel, thank you very much.

TED KOPPEL: My pleasure.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ted Koppel is the host of ABC's Nightline.