Anderson Cooper = Ashleigh Banfield?

Tim Goodman continues to churn out must-read columns:

“In his zeal to make Anderson Cooper the poster boy of cable news — apparently at all costs and with nary a concern about overexposure — [CNN/U.S. president Jon] Klein is taking a gamble that history is likely to reveal as a miscalculation. One man — even one as talented and likable as Cooper — does not turn around a news network.”

Goodman offers a two-word reminder: Ashleigh Banfield.

She “got a ton of ink. She got buzz. She got satirized. Then she got lost.”

In the Boston Globe, Matthew Felling, media director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, invokes Banfield, too:

“Just as 9/11 begat [MSNBC anchor] Ashleigh Banfield, so did Katrina create Anderson Cooper. Which begs the question: Anyone seen Ashleigh lately?”

> Update: 11:15am: “Anytime a television news organization installs ‘the next big thing’ in terms of talent, it nearly always backfires and this will be no exception,” an e-mailer says…