Timesman Thomas Friedman Wishes More Reporters Could Be Like Anderson Cooper

by Mark Joyella | 1:33 pm, November 17th, 2010

» 14 comments

The conceit on Anderson Cooper‘s nightly CNN show AC360 of “Keeping Them Honest” can sometimes feel forced and formulaic. Other times, Cooper uses his time to do what journalists are supposed to do: take the time to tear into a story and dig out the facts.

In a gushing column in today’s New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman delivers big props to Cooper for a segment he did on November 4, which Friedman compares favorably to Mark Twain:

On Nov. 4, Anderson Cooper did the country a favor. He expertly deconstructed on his CNN show the bogus rumor that President Obama’s trip to Asia would cost $200 million a day. This was an important “story.” It underscored just how far ahead of his time Mark Twain was when he said a century before the Internet, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” But it also showed that there is an antidote to malicious journalism — and that’s good journalism.

The heavily hyped claim that President Obama was burning $200 million dollars a day to tour Asia and avoid fixing the economy came complete with plenty of red meat specifics for talk radio and conservative pundits: a presidential retinue topping 2,000 people, 870 five-star hotel rooms for POTUS and staff, and 34 warships dispatched to keep things safe.

Cooper, Friedman says, painstakingly dissected those claims, and the people who repeated them without checking their facts–starting with the $200 million a day figure, which Cooper traced to a reporter at a newspaper in India:

“It was an anonymous quote,” said Cooper. “Some reporter in India wrote this article with this figure in it. No proof was given; no follow-up reporting was done. Now you’d think if a member of Congress was going to use this figure as a fact, she would want to be pretty darn sure it was accurate, right? But there hasn’t been any follow-up reporting on this Indian story. The Indian article was picked up by The Drudge Report and other sites online, and it quickly made its way into conservative talk radio.”

Watch the KTH segment here, from CNN:

The Real Royal King

Cooper does show enormous creativity and energy and even flashes of greatness.
SlurpeeSummit

The Real Royal King said:
Cooper does show enormous creativity and energy and even flashes of greatness.

No one wants to hear about your bedroom encounters, loser.
RobDavis

I have always like 360 and I think his keeping them honest segment is great and unbiased. I also appreciate his show when he takes you halfway around the world to discuss endangered animals and such. It’s not a perfect show, but then again who’s is? I think Cooper deserves more credit than he gets.
The Real Royal King

RobDavis said:
I have always like 360 and I think his keeping them honest segment is great and unbiased. I also appreciate his show when he takes you halfway around the world to discuss endangered animals and such. It’s not a perfect show, but then again who’s is? I think Cooper deserves more credit than he gets.

I suspect Cooper may be a trend-setter. Only time will tell, of course. But advocacy journalism surely becomes stale after a while. MSNBC and FOX “News” probably have a more limited engagement than many of us realize.
SteveMG

If only Cooper spoke Mandarin then, for Friedman, he’d be perfect.

I am continually amazed at Friedman’s admiration of the Chinese system.

Yeah, not related to the specific topic but it’s always good to take a shot at old Tom and his love for dictatorships.
http://www.mediaite.com Mark Joyella

Who saw the dolphins-looking-in-the-mirror story last night? I was ready to diss it, but found it fantastic and fascinating.
BatBoy

“He expertly deconstructed on his CNN show the bogus rumor that President Obama’s trip to Asia would cost $200 million a day. ”

I did the same thing …in my living room … and had no ideal Anderson did a segment on it until now.
I am no Mark Twain and neither is Anderson Cooper.

This story provers only one thing, with the ratings Anderson gets for his show, his only audience are lefty writers and a few people outside of a retail TV store looking at a TV show thru plate glass.
disenlightened

Thomas Friedman is an ideologue. He likes Cooper because he thinks Cooper agrees with him politically and he knows Cooper’s ratings are down and wants to give him a boost. Plus, when multimillionaire-by-marriage-Friedman (who happens to be close friends with twice-multimillionaire-by-marriage-John F*&%ing Kerry, who served in Vietnam) was looking for a nanny for his kids, multimillionaire-by-birth-Cooper put him in touch with his own former nanny.
stephenpyle

The Real Royal King said:
I suspect Cooper may be a trend-setter. Only time will tell, of course. But advocacy journalism surely becomes stale after a while. MSNBC and FOX “News” probably have a more limited engagement than many of us realize.

I agree with you. I’m a big fan of AC but I admit his show can get dry at times and I don’t think his ratings can or will ever compare to the likes of Beck, O’Reilly, Olberman, etc. I do think Cooper’s show (for the most part) is a good example of unbiased, good journalism.
Cancon2

Hey Tom, nobody gives a shit that you liked an Anderson Cooper story. I mean who cares.
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Mangan/100000213524770 David Mangan

I’m still waiting for any journalist [which leaves out ink-stained millionaire wretches like Friedman & Cooper] to come up with an alternative amount—-my guess is that it’s north of $50/mm/day by a good deal.

And Cooper, let’s not forget, dove into his deep realm of personal experiences to popularize the term “teabagger” for the Tea Party patriots, who unlike AC, werem’t born with a silver dildo in their mouths.
libra blue

I guess Friedman and Anderson both missed the part about it being 200 million rupees. They are supposed to be such great journalists, you would think they would have picked up on that. Even after it has been all over the Internet, they still haven’t reported it.

@Mark Joyella, ” Who saw the dolphins-looking-in-the-mirror story last night? I was ready to diss it, but found it fantastic and fascinating.”

I watched it. I love animals and It was fascinating. I do think they are more intelligent than we realize, but I still don’t understand how they know the dolphins are recognizing themselves and not just thinking they are seeing other dolphins.

The Bonobo story was also very interesting, but I think AC donned the bunny outfit just to entertain his audience. I doubt the Bonobos told him to put on the bib and hop around. unless of course they were trying to make a fool out of him.
omega919

Anderson Cooper and Shepard Smith are the two guys that make me have hope for cable news. You can be an adult and still be a success in the medium (well, AC is a success by CNN standards, at least).
disenlightened

stephenpyle said:
I agree with you. I’m a big fan of AC but I admit his show can get dry at times and I don’t think his ratings can or will ever compare to the likes of Beck, O’Reilly, Olberman, etc. I do think Cooper’s show (for the most part) is a good example of unbiased, good journalism.

Two words: Tea Bagger.