A Standing Ovation

Cooper sees horror yet humanity in Haiti

By Michele Willer-Allred
Posted February 19, 2010 at 11:40 p.m.


Photo by Chuck Kirman
Anderson Cooper of CNN escorts former first lady Nancy Reagan. He said the news he chooses to cover often gets ignored or forgotten, and he’s afraid the same thing is happening with coverage of Haiti.
Americans shouldn’t forget that hundreds of thousands of Haitians are still suffering after a devastating earthquake that hit their country last month, journalist Anderson Cooper said Friday night during an appearance at the Reagan Library.

While things are getting a little better in Haiti, Cooper said, more than a half-million people who lost their homes are now living on the streets and in parks, and torrential rains are starting to hit the area.

“Port-au-Prince is literally a graveyard,” Cooper said of the thousands of people buried in Haiti’s capital, many in mass graves.

Cooper, anchor of “Anderson Cooper 360” on CNN, this week returned to the United States from his second trip to Haiti since the Jan. 12 earthquake. He spoke in front of a sold-out audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley.

Cooper, 42, escorted former first lady Nancy Reagan and received a standing ovation before he spoke in the Library’s Presidential Learning Center.

Cooper has been at the Reagan Library before, having moderated the 2008 Republican presidential debates there.

John Heubusch, executive director for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, described Cooper as “an agent of change and a force for good in the country.”

“He’s one of the finest newsmen in the industry today,” Heubusch said.


Photo by Chuck Kirman, Chuck Kirman / Star staff
Anderson Cooper of CNN speaks in front of a sold-out audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley on Friday.
Cooper, who is the son of heiress and fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt, said that although he attended Yale University, he really became educated about the world by working as a foreign news correspondent and covering dangerous war zones, natural disasters and tragedy.

Cooper chronicles his experience covering Hurricane Katrina, the South Asia tsunami, and other major news stories in his book “Dispatches from the Edge.”

“You expect to see horror, but you also see humanity (covering these stories),” Cooper said.

Cooper arrived in Haiti the day after the 7.0 magnitude quake and stayed for more than two weeks, giving firsthand reports on the disaster, which killed more than 200,000 people.

His live news reports for CNN included rescuers frantically searching and pulling survivors from under rubble. He was also shown live on television dropping his microphone during a riot to carry a badly wounded boy to safety.

“It was horrifying to be there after the earthquake, but I felt privileged to be there and bear witness to the incredible stories of survival,” Cooper said.

While many news reporters left the area, Cooper chose to return earlier this month for his second trip to the country, where he reported on the aftermath, including the growing number of children left orphaned after the quake.

Cooper said the news he chooses to cover often gets ignored or eventually forgotten in the press, and he’s afraid the same thing is happening with coverage of Haiti.

Cooper said Americans should continue to keep the discussion alive about Haiti and other regions so news outlets will continue to cover it.

“It’s not the kind of misery that often makes for headlines, and clearly it’s not the kind of sorrow that demands a place on the nightly news, but it should,” Cooper said.