Touting His Ratings

...As Well He Should.


Anderson Cooper's New Tagline: 'Too Much Yelling in Cable News'
Not enough in reality television

When we first heard Anderson Cooper on NPR today, smugly touting his recent ratings boom as being a direct effect of his calm demeanor, we thought to ourselves, "Aww, as if we don't know which way you lean, Coop." The whole argument that the Vanderbilt son does well specifically because he remains biparitsan may be a valid one, but at some point you realize that Cooper is as much of a celebrity as those he claims (like la Lohans) to despise, and his ratings are as much about his A-lister status as they are about his ability to be a broadcast journalist.

Just saying, we don't follow around Chris Matthews wondering who he is hanging out with at LAX airport.

But then, we saw that Anderson gave almost the exact quote verbatim to David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun, and we couldn't let his self-congratulation slide any longer.

Q. You just won the November ratings period in the key demographic of viewers 25 to 54 by sticking with traditional news values — even as your competition moves further to the right and the left. Can you talk about how you see yourself and the CNN show journalistically?

A. I think there’s too much yelling on cable news, and I don’t want to add to it. These are scary times. These are dangerous times. A lot of people are hurting, and I’m not interested in adding to the cacophony of chatter on cable news...

I take the news very seriously. I don’t necessarily take myself all that seriously. But I believe in mixing it up and having a variety of topics — and when appropriate, laughing at myself and at what’s going on. But I think in many ways I’m sort of old school.

Yes Anderson, let the yelling on television be the responsibility of the Real Housewives of Atlanta and other reality shows, right? Zurawik is extremely sympathetic to Coop's cause, since he was last seen gutting Greta Van Susteren for her "biased" interview with Sarah Palin. If only we could distill Cooper's pure objectivity into some sort of serum and inject it into all other journalists!

Careful Cooper, if you keep taking yourself so seriously (and you definitely do, despite your protestation), you're going to end up more bitter than Dan Rather.

Dec 10, 2008 · posted by drew

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Peter's NOTE: I don't know Drew, but he sure sounds jealous. La la la la la la. La la la la la la.