Anderson Cooper Personifies Push-Pull

Anderson Cooper represents “the double-threat of news legitimacy and a pop culture radar,”
Paul Brownfield writes in today’s L.A. Times. “He personifies the push-pull between selling a story, Geraldo-style, and presenting it for your intellectual delectation, Brown-style. Cooper can do both and somehow look both parts; he is 38 but he has gray hair, and down in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina he showed an ability to both feel into the story and actually question posturing officials who gave pat answers.”

> Also: An e-mailer pulled out the “Anderson Cooper is a Yale-educated Geraldo” phrase and asked: “Can anyone really believe that Jon Klein is replacing the gravitas of Aaron Brown w/ Cooper — a former reality television host who has only been in the news business for 4 years and never even covered 9/11? The actual journalists at CNN must be going wild over this.”