Aftermath: Is CNN’s Anderson Cooper Asserting “Moral Authority?”

Anderson Cooper, “the white-haired wonder boy of CNN…has been getting extraordinary press lately,” CJR notes. But not everyone is a fan of his reporting from the Gulf Coast.

“Without experiencing the death of a loved-one, Cooper has managed to become the Cindy Sheehan of Hurricane Katrina,” Power Line Blog says. “Because he saw dead bodies, he asserts the “moral authority” to dish out blame without analysis and without rejoinder. He cannot (or does not wish to) distinguish between his anger and the story. Nor, given the attitude of his network, would it be in Cooper’s interest to make that distinction.”

Then Austin Bay agrees: “Last week I watched a few minutes worth of Cooper’s work, then shook my head and changed channels.”

> Update: 1:50am: “Don’t you think you’re being more than a little bit misleading by not mentioning that PowerLine and Austin Bay are conservative blogs?? Duh, of course they’re not going to like Cooper, since he’s been criticizing the Fed. gov. response,” an e-mailer says. I assumed that readers knew the political leanings of those bloggers…