It can be argued that ABC News: Nightline was the birth of fake news. The show's original tagline was "The Iranian Crisis: America Held Hostage." That was highly editorial and jingoistic in nature if you think about it just for a minute. This should come as no surprise when you realize it was the brainchild of Roone Arledge who was promoted from heading ABC Sports to heading the news department as well. It's even less surprising when you realize that Arledge is the same guy who lost the rights to televise the real sport of NBA games and replaced it on Sunday afternoons with made-up competition of the Superstars.
Superstars did better ratings on ABC than CBS did with NBA games in the same time slots. Likewise ABC News went from a 3rd place also ran to a ratings juggernaut under Arledge with the creation of ABC News: Nightline. The fact was not lost on ABC's competition and programming news stories for ratings (the clicks of the day) was off and running.
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