Anderson Cooper 360°

I nearly choked when I read tonight that Mr Cooper believes he is unbiased and non partisan. Hate can be spewed without actually saying "hate". He does it daily and yet you can see how he believes his sanctimonious diatribes where the president is concerned. I'm guessing in his life he has known what it feels like to be vilified. Perhaps he might want to take a step back, remember his stature and not be so quick to call the president a "little man". Whoever the president, they have agreed to carry the weight of our country on their shoulders. At least try to be respectful of that agreement no matter what party alignment or candidate you back.

Anderson Cooper is definitely not a radical leftist - greetings from Europe. Instead of dealing with such an analysis-free "thesis", one should just take a look at how Cooper deals with topics in a journalistic way: Sometimes he deals astutely with topics that either nobody else takes up or he questions circulating media discourses quite well. On the other hand, Cooper quickly jumps on a moving train when it comes to certain issues without questioning whether he should even take any of the train connections for this issue. So it is understandable that supporters of the former President of the USA Donald Trump are not too happy with Cooper, but that all of his reporting with the reckless mistakes and / or deliberate misjudgments regarding the Trump issue is unreflected and at least just as negligent. Anderson Cooper was also working journalistically with a hit and miss mission at Trump, but he should be credited with the fact that he was most likely to be able to question mistakes that he himself made in his journalistic work.

"Larry King Live" can't hold a candle to "Anderson Cooper 360". Cooper's 10:00pm offering was also surpassing Lou Dobbs who recently resigned from the network. While the color tone of Larry King's hour keeps getting lighter and lighter (I think he interviewed Michael Jackson's family and friends during the entire month after Jackson's passing), Cooper's hour is a breath of fresh prime-time air, a return to hard journalism after an hour of the trivial and the banal. Cooper started out some years ago as the new pretty boy on the CNN block, a kind of news star for teenyboppers and twenty-somethings. But I think after having rubbed shoulders with the likes of Wolf Blitzer and many other heavy-hitters of journalism, both Cooper and his colleague John King are forging careers more and more reminiscent of Mike Wallace and David Frost rather than light-weights like Larry King and Matt Lauer. If you don't agree, consider that Cooper has even done assignments for "60 Minutes".

One of the strongest aspects of Cooper's show is the inclusion of David Gergen and Jeffrey Toobin as political commentators. Gergen may be the finest political commentator on the television airwaves, with Mark Shields and David Brooks of PBS right behind. (In fact, Gergen had been paired with Mark Shields at PBS before he had been asked to help at the Clinton White House in the early 1990's.) Gergen has an amazing insight into the psychology of the American political landscape that is just simply unmatched outside of print journalism. So you have to credit Anderson Cooper playing the same role as Jim Lehrer does on Fridays on PBS, asking probing questions to get to the meat of all matters political concerning current issues. While Gergen is certainly Cooper's cleanup hitter, Jeffrey Toobin and some of the other commentators also rank as top-notch journalist-commentators, particularly Carl Bernstein and Ed Rollins. (Although in an amusing moment, Toobin was caught watching a Boston Red Sox game on his laptop the night of the 2008 presidential elections! I don't think CNN was paying him to watch baseball.)

Anderson Cooper's stories are insightful, relevant, and he is not afraid to engage in field reporting which is where he started. Occasionally, he'll be on assignment in Afghanstan or Iran, plowing through the mud of the human experience to get the real story. That's real journalism, pure and simple, not just pontificating opinions at a studio desk with a microphone. (Anybody with half a brain and studio backing can do that.) Cooper engages both conservative and liberal commentators. I disagree strongly with some of the assessments made here that 360 leans left. David Gergen served republican presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, although he is declared as an independent. Ed Rollins, who is just about as conservative as they come, is a regular commentator-contributor. (Although if your idea of conservative is Bill O'Reilly, I have nothing further to say on the point.) Cooper has done well to balance on the center divide of issues allowing both sides of the political spectrum equal time. Whether this will eventually land Cooper a position as a television news anchor is hard to tell, but I don't think that's where his strength lies. Cooper is showing his meat as a relevant hard-nosed reporter striving to use journalism for what it was meant to do: inform to make a difference, not just entertain. How can the public possibly make informed decisions and evaluations about its leaders if it is not informed?

Back in the day, my first impression of Anderson was he had no idea how to structure an interview or how to ask questions.

He always seemed reluctant to ask follow up questions and push the conversation.

His speech also trails off as he approaches the end of a sentence or question.

Questions should NOT be speeches. You will lose your audience and cause the interviewee to become more defensive and cautious Speaking, whether in front of a live audience or a live microphone is ALL about maintaining tone, sound modulation and breathing. Anderson has yet to learn that. He mumbles ALOT. Voiceis a problem with most of the talking heads on TV. They ALL need voice coaches, and off screen practice.

I'm not as much of a fan of CNN now that they have opted to go with a bunch of new people giving the news and even commentary as opposed to just news.

I'm not sure that I blame Anderson Cooper in person for this negative effect on the CNN franchise, but he is one of those that I would rather not see unless he's just giving news.

I think it's because I always saw CNN as a means to just news without commentary, without lots of color or modification. News in the raw as it happens.

Lately they have brought on a group of people that do commentary, discussion, and fluff and regretfully this show by Anderson Cooper is one of them.

Bring back the news as it is, raw and unscripted.