Cooper bashing, refined…
In next week’s L.A. Times Magazine, Dan Neil writes about Anderson Cooper and his “breakout season” in a near must read that I struggled over which part to quote…
I have no doubt that Cooper was deeply affected by the events of New Orleans. But news anchors get only one such episode to register their humanity. Walter Cronkite choked up the day JFK died. Dan Rather lost it on 9/11. Any more than that and they start to look unstable, emotionally opportunistic and, worst of all, unreliable.
A case in point is the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia. I’ll never forget the look on Cooper’s face when, after hours on-air, he was told the trapped miners had not, as it was earlier reported, survived. Cooper had allowed himself to be caught up in the relief, the elation of relatives and friends—indeed, he had played to it because it made good TV—and that undercut him just as he needed journalistic objectivity most.
Many people will call this just another hit piece and there may be some truth to that criticism. But what what struck me about the piece is Neil takes familiar criticisms that have been out there for a while but adds a focus that previous Anderson rants seemed to lack.
This is a perfect telling of the Anderson Cooper fast rise to fame.
I haven’t read a better one. It accurately captures his personal qualities and sheds light on our dueling interpretations of them.
Comment by cella — June 3, 2006 @ 11:26 am
Actually this propagates a couple Urban Legends about Cooper, the one that he got all weepy during Katrina and that his numbers are falling.
Have you ever seen a screenshot of Anderson in tears during Katrina? No, because there aren’t any. (And trust me, if there were, they would be out there.) ONCE his voice got choked up and he had to stare at the ground for a few seconds and clear his throat before continuing. And once he waved the camera off him to film other stuff because he was reacting to what he was seeing. But now most people think he was dissolving in tears nightly. Sheesh.
And yet again, Brian at TVNewser’s post about falling numbers in APRIL is used to prove that 360 is losing its timeslot. Never a mention that April 05 had unusually high ratings due to the Pope’s death, or that May figures show 360 gaining hugely over ‘05 in the demo. I wonder how many months of rising ratings it will take to erase the ‘falling ratings’ meme?
Comment by Arthur — June 3, 2006 @ 1:53 pm