Debating Anderson Cooper’s Twitter Fight

By Chris Ariens 

Anderson Cooper’s Twitter backlash toward a viewer was a topic on the “Today” show’s third hour this morning.

“Cooper,” explained Willie Giest, “has been reporting from Gaza for the last several days, very busy dodging bombs quite literally… but taking to Twitter to respond to some critical and some even hateful tweets.”

Geist and co-hosts Al Roker, Natalie Morales, Savannah Guthrie and Jenna Wolfe — with a combined 432,000 Twitter followers (Cooper’s got 3.33 million) — debated whether news personalities should “engage people who attack you on Twitter.”

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“You want to,” said Wolfe, “Believe me, you want to, and the thumbs start going like this.”

Morales and Roker agreed, “There’s no way to win. It’s a no-win situation.” Morales then added, “He’s been reporting 12 to 18 hour days, tirelessly, bombs going off, so his nerves are on edge and I can imagine that, you get these attacks, and some of them very personal — one even talking about his sexual orientation — and you can’t help but want to go after those people so, I do kind of see where he’s going.” How Cooper responded to @Pamela_Weiss, after the jump.

Cooper tweeted this morning that he’s leaving Gaza and will be anchoring his show tonight, from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

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