Beginning with the first sentence, "On vacation last week," we realize this article was from a long time ago when we all were under the impression that Anderson was like everybody else, and that he went to exotic places on a much deserved vacation. Were we in for a big surprise! He was fresh from two natural disasters, the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, that were essential to boost his profile. 2005 was also the year he sold his memoir to Harper Collins for $1 million -- a $1 million very well spent for "Dispatched from the Edge," book about Anderson's work and private life.
Now, this I didn't know or if I did then I forgot about it: "He began writing it in Mexico on his laptop." I was certainly surprised. I immediately imagined Anderson sitting on a quiet, white sand beach; on a folding, canvas chair, wearing a straw sombrero to protect his face from the hard Mexican sun, his body glistening with sweat and protective sun lotion (#257) and with his laptop on his lap.
But he is leaning on his back and the sombrero is covering his face, he appears to be taking a siesta! That's the way ideas come into your head to be typed at a later time in your laptop.
A Mexican waiter with a body to kill for and a skin as bronzed as an Aztec god appears with a piña colada on a tray and taps Anderson on his shoulder... The rest of the story is, as you might have guessed, quite private -- you'll have to continue the story to accommodate your own devious mind.
It was on 2005 that CNN expanded Anderson's show to a two-hour format. And it was also during that year that CNN pushed anchor Aaron Brown and NewsNight out of the CNN schedule and made it clear for our new, young star, Anderson, who was only 38 years old that year, to continue his way up to SuperStar!
The rest, as they say, is a very well known story in the history of Cable News.
Read the article and reminisce. Enjoy!
CNN's Cooper relishes new role
On vacation last week, CNN's Anderson Cooper flew to Oaxaca, Mexico, to attend the Day of The Dead festival, where families go to local cemeteries with food and drink to "welcome back all the souls who have departed."
"It's been a year with a lot of loss and I just thought it seemed like the right place to be," says Cooper, whose live reports from two natural disasters, the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, have boosted his profile at CNN. "The saddest people are those who have lost children, but by and large it's this incredibly festive thing. They want people who have died to take part in the joys in the material world."Cooper has been experiencing some of that joy of late. He recently sold his memoir to HarperCollins for $1 million. (He began writing it in Mexico on his laptop.) And, on Monday, CNN shifted and expanded his show, Anderson Cooper 360, to a two-hour, 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT block.
In the process, CNN pushed anchor Aaron Brown and NewsNight out and made it clear that Cooper, 38, is a rising star on a network that could stand some twinkles.
"It's been a remarkable year and a terrible year, and I've learned a lot and I've seen a lot," Cooper says. "It started literally from the ball drop at Times Square, where I was, and four hours later I was on a plane to Sri Lanka for the tsunami. I was in Niger for the starvation of children, and that was tough. And then Katrina was overwhelming."
Disaster coverage has helped raise his profile, but "to me, nothing good has come out of Katrina or come out of this last year from these stories," he says. "I just don't think like that."
And the whole concept of stardom is something the son of socialite Gloria Vanderbilt says he pays little attention to.
"There's always somebody whom people say that about — and then there's somebody else," he says. "To me, this is a great opportunity to tell more stories and tell them in depth and really focus on what's going on, to hold people accountable and get answers."
Cooper never travels without a handheld camera or laptop, and during his six weeks covering Katrina he frequently reported on a handful of stories a day. "You should be changed by all the stories you report on," he says. "I still carry with me children in Niger who passed away while I was there."
Says 360 producer David Doss: "The whole fluid notion of how people get their news is what Anderson is all about. He gets it in a big way." Doss plans to get Cooper back on the road; trips to Asia and Iraq are planned before year's end.
CNN is banking heavily on the combination of Cooper and veteran anchor Wolf Blitzer in earlier time slots to better challenge No. 1 Fox News. "Maybe I'm supposed to be focusing more time on ratings, but it just doesn't interest me," Cooper says. "I want to do well, but I also want to be smart and tell good stories. And I think you can do both."
Day of the Dead
November 1, the day after Halloween
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