All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Near Miss: ABC News' Chris Cuomo and photographer Bartley Price almost became the latest journalists to be injured or killed in Iraq. They were in an armored Humvee convoy traveling through Baghdad that came under small-arms fire. The Humvee then passed two bodies which were hiding explosives. "The explosion sent hubcap-size shrapnel tearing through the steel sides of the Humvees, rupturing tires, and wounding several troops as insurgents continued to rain small-arms fire down on the convoy."

Cuomo and Price were not hurt, and Cuomo spoke very highly of the soldiers for their handling of the incident. Was Cuomo shaken up? "I'm trying not to deal with it. I'm trying to deal with it like a soldier, just do my job," he said.

Cable Wars: Fox News, along with the New York Post and talk-radio hosts, discussed a report from a conservative magazine suggesting that Barack Obama had attended a madrassa, "a school that teaches a radical version of the Muslim faith," as a child. (The information, it was claimed, came from "researchers connected to" Hillary Clinton.) Turns out the whole thing was made up, at least according to CNN: The network sent a reporter to the school and discovered it had no connection to Islamic fundamentalism. CNN's Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer then took a shot at Fox's reporting. “That’s the difference between talking about news and reporting it. You send a reporter, check the facts, and you decide at home,” said Cooper. Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti responded with this: “Yet another cry for attention by the Paris Hilton of television news, Anderson Cooper." You stay classy, Irena.

Pagan Pride: Noted without comment, the beginning of a letter to the Gloucestershire Gazette (hat tip Greenslade): "Dear Editor I am writing with reference to an article that appeared on the Gazette's website entitled 'Devil worship fears as goat is found in ditch'. The first line of the narrative on the website suggested that this was a 'pagan-style' ritual. As a Pagan myself, I was appalled that this dreadful attack might be associated with members of the Pagan community."

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As widely reported and expected, CBS News has announced that CNN anchor Anderson Cooper will become a contributor to “60 Minutes,” starting this coming fall. It’s not the first time CNN and CBS have teamed up to share talent. Cooper contributed two stories to “60 Minutes” in 2004 and international correspondent Christiane Amanpour has been a contributor to the show in the past as well.

It seems to me that this type of talent-sharing arrangement makes sense for both parties. In the case of Cooper, “60 Minutes” gets a young, fresh face who is commonly described as one of the fastest-rising stars in broadcast journalism. Cooper, and by extension CNN, get the imprimatur of a respected and legendary news program. According to the announcement, Cooper will contribute up to five stories a year to “60 Minutes,” and the pieces will run once each on CNN after appearing on the show. Here’s how CNN President Jon Klein put it in the press release issued by CBS News today:

Anderson's work for 60 Minutes continues a unique collaboration we've had with CBS News and 60 Minutes for several years — and it's a strong, mutually beneficial one," said Klein. "CBS News gets strong journalism from one of our most respected and talented journalists, and Anderson gets much deserved exposure for his distinctive reports. We are also pleased that we have arranged, for the first time, for CNN to air Anderson's 60 Minutes reports."

All this raises a question: In an environment with ever more ways to get information, will talent begin to become something that is not hoarded or monopolized, but leveraged for maximum exposure? One is reminded of the fortunes of movie studios, who long controlled the careers of their stars before those stars earned autonomy and changed the landscape of the business. This is a very different situation, of course, and it's unlikely that we’ll see a network anchor doing a star turn on a competitor’s news show anytime soon. But it wasn’t all that long ago a talent-sharing arrangement between any TV news organizations was unthinkable. Does the changing media environment mean cross-pollination of network talent just may become more and more common?

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In the San Francisco Chronicle today, Tim Goodman writes that Anderson Cooper's "career has yet to suffer the inevitable media backlash that comes with insta-fame…"



I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with Goodman. It seems to me that Cooper has experienced the ups-and-downs of "insta-fame" quite a bit already. Around the time of Hurricane Katrina, during which he conducted a confrontational interview with Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, Cooper was hailed as journalism's savior, a compassionate newsman who brought heart and outrage back into the news business. But once he was named as Aaron Brown's replacement at CNN – just about two months later – he had gone from the solution to the problem.



Consider the following:



Two pieces on popular media roundup site Romenesko today, the Chronicle piece above and one from the Boston Globe, suggest Cooper may soon become a has-been. "Just as 9/11 begat [MSNBC anchor] Ashleigh Banfield, so did Katrina create Anderson Cooper," Matthew Felling, media director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, said in the Globe. ''Which begs the question: Anyone seen Ashleigh lately?"



On Friday, Kay McFadden wrote in the Seattle Times that she loves Cooper as a reporter, "[y]et his weakness is providing analysis and perspective — precisely the skills most needed by an anchor." That same day, Paul Brownfield, in the LA Times, compared Cooper to journalistic whipping boy Geraldo Rivera. (A comparison also made in The New Republic by Franklin Foer, who, to his credit, beat the backlash by a good month.)

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There has been plenty of talk in the blogosphere about yesterday’s news of Aaron Brown’s departure from CNN and Anderson Cooper's promotion to primetime anchor in his place. Many of CNN President Jon Klein’s statements on the matter have been noted elsewhere, but there was one paragraph in the New York Times’ report on Aaron Brown’s “ouster” that particularly stood out:

"Mr. Klein also noted that Mr. Cooper has started to turn up as a character satirized on ‘Saturday Night Live’ on NBC, a development that he said was ‘a sure sign’ that people were becoming more aware of him."

I know SNL skits might have done wonders for Paris Hilton's resume, but since when did they become the barometer of successful exposure for journalists? Many of those lamenting the shakeup suggest that Klein seems more interested in promoting a "hot property" than an experienced newsman.

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