This negates any ad that CNN might put out trying to paint Cooper as unbiased.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64Ed5iLu4M

I like Anderson when he fills in on Regis and Kelly, but I don’t buy him as a down the middle reporter. But, we do need it.

I disagree with Sara somewhat. I think this is good for CNN and Cooper. I also re-read the lead in text by Krakauer and he’s right. “It’s not about finding the viewers who want their news down the middle. They need to speak to all those ‘lifelong Democrats’ and ‘lifelong Republicans’ who are busy talking over each other right now.”

This is exactly about being unbiased. Unbiased does not mean one has no opinion and never takes a side. It means one tries to come at a story without a pre-disposition to one side or the other.

Why is Michael Scherer getting a pass in all this? Obviously the audio of the ad was bad and needed to be corrected, but Scherer puts all the blame on technology? Give me a break. Anyone who actually watched the ad could see both the words “Republican” and “Democrat” on the screen. Do TIME writers make it a habit of writing about things they haven’t even watched?

Whether on purpose or by accident (and, honestly, I don’t think these CNN guys are sharp enough), the female voice (with the higher, treble pitch) walked all over the male voice (with the lower, base pitch), and the ad’s audio was seemingly calling out the Republicans solely for their lies. Even though the screen showed both parties, humans register and decipher sound much more quickly than visual text, and the result is a biased ad against Republicans, wholely by accident IMHO. CNN was correct to “fix” the ad, but I still don’t see why anyone watches AC/360. For my laughs, I watch Rachel Maddow and the Olbermeister!

@sarainitaly, You are right about that! Anderson’s “teabagging” comment was worse than this ad appeared to be and the results are in the ratings. After he made that comment no one in their right mind believed that he was a “down the middle” journalist. Don’t forget about Anderson’s infatuation with his BFF Barack.

Even with the “fixed” audio, if you are not watching the promo, the woman’s voice overpowers the man’s. That is probably intentional. Either way, this ad is clumsy and confusing. I doubt this will attract many new viewers to his program and the ones who watch or have watched him know where he stands, but it may get AC360 some short term attention and based on his ratings, he could use the exposure.

@NewHampster, Do you watch 360 much? There are certain issues where Anderson is obviously biased and not only does he report it that way, but he moderates the panels to favor his position. He will even add controversy to an issue where it does not exist in order to promote his agenda or to make the story more sensational, even to the point of putting words in people’s mouths. .

Anderson blew it when he used the “teabagger” term and let the cat out of the bag (as if viewers didn’t already know his political leanings). As long as CNN keeps Carville and Begalla on as pundits they won’t regain any viewers. Anderson does not report down the middle, and no ad is going to help him one iota.

Why are you guys covering up for Michael Scherer with this deceptively worded article?

There was no “audio problem” with the ad that needed to be corrected. As Scherer himself admits the problem was with the faulty audio of his TV as well as his failure to actually watch even once the ad he was writing about (if he had he would have seen the graphics that make the true message of the ad clear even on his faulty TV) and his failure to do any sort of responsible fact confimation effort before publishing his accusations.

@Roger1998, AC360′s bias is really obvious in the blog comments that they allow to be posted. If you submit a comment criticizing Obama or any Democrat, especially those working at CNN, such as Paul Begala, Roland Martin, Donna Brazile, or James Carville, chances are it will be blocked, but if by chance it does get posted, they will delete it later even if it adheres to all of their stupid rules that they themselves break on a regular basis.

This happens to me all of the time, the latest incident was on Friday I criticized Obama’s Nobel Prize, they posted it, and six minutes later it was deleted. Then I tried to say that the award was a political ploy by the European community, which many are saying now, and it was blocked.

Luckily Steve allows me to repost my comments here where it probably gets read by more people than on the 360 live blog.

I saw the ad at least three times yesterday on CNN — today’s version is completely different. The graphics may have been there but it doesn’t matter, it was the words that counted. And the “I’m a life long democrat” came through loud and clear. It doesn’t matter though, Cooper played his hand with his “teabagger” comment and those who watched it will not excuse that level of bias, now or ever. Let’s face it, CNN is in dire straights in the ratings, Campbell Brown won the ratings on Friday night (totals) and you know when that happens, CNN is lost.

ciao Hampster! ;O)

‘ It means one tries to come at a story without a pre-disposition to one side or the other.”

Yes, but I don’t trust Cooper to do that when he makes derogatory comments like he did in the video I posted. He turned off a lot of listeners with those comments. And with them, he showed he has a predisposition to one side over another, IMHO.

Anderson made a naughty joke about “tea bagging” after that term had become attached to a group of protestors. There’s no reason to assume he would have resisted the urge to make a similar naughty tea bagging quip if the term had become attached to a group of left wing demonstrators instead. I suspect he probably would have given in to the temptation regardless of the political orientation of group.

There was nothing inherently political in the joke itself that Anderson tossed off, unlike the political diatribes MSNBC personalities had been engaging in for weeks where they used the term “tea bagging” repeatedly.

Wonder if Cooper made that same Tea Bagger crack about the pervs that were just in DC? No? Well, perhaps his mouth was full of Gergin. Join the march on the media 10/17. Go to http://www.operationcanyouhearusnow.com/

Cooper was mimicking Maddow; he wasn’t making fun of her, he was making fun of the proteters. Cooper is in competition only with MSNBC. FNC is the dominant network and Cooper is hanging on for dear life in a competition with viewers who would prefer to watch a rerun of KO. That is why Cooper used the term. He went to the gutter in the hopes of gaining some of the gutter dwellers who watch MSNBC.

@TfT He went to the gutter in the hopes of gaining some of the gutter dwellers who watch MSNBC. I have been called a few things in my long life but “gutter dweller” is about as low as it gets!! Thanks

@devan Please explain wht you mean by the pervs that were in DC this weekend. Did you mean The Gays??? Go and crawl back under that rock you have been under.

Anderson Cooper’s little tea bagging joke was not explicitly political and it was not the first or last time he or anyone else has made a joke of a sexual nature during a newscast. I think you guys are reading way too much into it.

People on FOX have made sexual jokes too on occasion and during the last administration they called demonstrators derisive names and mocked and dismissed the efforts of protestors. O’Reilly and Dennis Miller guffawed together over their own suggestion that Barney Frank would enjoy getting raped in jail because he’s a gay man, which pretty much takes the cake for bad taste, offensive, crude humor applied to participants in our great democracy on a cable news program.

The tea party protestors had already been labelled “tea baggers” on websites and by a number of MSNBC personalities. That presented Anderson with the opportunity for a tea bag joke and he took it. If conservatives give some liberal sub-group that is not a historically persecuted minority a label refering to a far out sexual practice he’ll probably get tempted into making a joke about that. He already participated in a Daily Show skit that depicted a Code Pink protestor as a disruptive small dog in a pink shirt.

If we are actually showing respect to the tea party protestors we should also recognize that they have repeatedly proclaimed that they are a bipartisan movement, which means if a slight is made against them it is a slight made equally to both parties.

I completely agree with nam. This whole thing is way overblown, especially after Cooper apologized and explained it wasn’t meant to disparage their actual protest.

I’d like to add the tea-partiers came up with the “teabagging” description themselves. It was used both on signs by protesters and by Fox News before the double entendre was picked up on. I’m sorry, but try to look at this objectively. Whatever your goal or political stance, using a double entendre for your protesting is funny, and would be equally hilarious if other people had done it, pro-obama liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans, animal rights activists, whoever. And pointing out the double entendre has nothing to do with the stances of the protesters themselves, it has to do with that somonefriggin picked the name a sex act to promote their movement. Try to get a sense of humor about yourself, make a self-deprecating joke, and then continue to make your actual point.

Whoops, typo galore. Sorry.

You don’t seriously mean that non-apology at the Daniel Pearl Memorial lecture to you? He apologized and defended the comment in the same breath! He didn’t even acknowledge that it was offensive. Funny thing is he gets all bent out of shape when people make jokes about Obama.

You would have to be a complete idiot to think that those tea party protesters knew that there was a vulgar meaning attached to it.

Oh yeah, and what was the journalistic significance of making that comment again? I guess it was just an inside joke for the crowd that he hangs out with.

No, this is not the first and only time Anderson has revealed what his political views are. His love affair with Obama is well documented and the biased way in which he conducts his panel “discussions” is obvious to everyone, that is why his ratings are in the crapper.

I wonder if he and his degenerate friends get a big laugh out of that.

Correction: “do you?”

He made an offhand comment on the term, not their positions, he did not make an anti-teaparty diatribe, and I think that apology covered it.

I don’t think they knew the meaning, no. You’d think they should have at least googled it before using it so excessively. Still, they did use it, and it’s amusing, albeit in a somewhat juvenile way. And would have been no matter who used it, since it has nothing to do with their political views, see my comment above.

Not every single sentence he utters has to be full of journalistic significance. It was just a joke, and if by “degenerate friends” you mean gay people, then that’s offensive. I think the outrage at the “vile, disgraceful, degenerate, etc” term alone is overreacting too, he said it once, did not go into details, and really it’s not as if people have never heard of sex before, and this isn’t the 50′s.

I know quite a lot of people who actually find him too anti-Obama. Maybe it’s just what viewpoint you’re coming from, but I don’t find him pro-Obama either.