CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is profiled in a lengthy, wide-ranging profile in this month’s Elle Magazine by Lisa DePaulo.
The interview touches on many areas of Cooper’s life and his reporting at CNN, and how he balances the pre-fame fame with his current standing in the media.
He talks about the “feud” with Greta Van Susteren (“The idea of it, I guess, is that it boosts your ratings and stuff, but it seems like a waste of time to me. I honestly wish her nothing but, you know, happiness.”), his last vacation (“There was that trip to Colombia that was supposed to be a vacation, but all he could think of when he got there was doing stories on drug trafficking.”) and the “fanciest item” he owns (a Rolex).
Here’s a part of the introduction:
He is our generation’s Edward R. Murrow; that is, if Murrow were this good-looking and had lived in a world with Gawker and TMZ. This is not just because of Cooper’s exacting standards of journalism — hard work, legwork, no-divaness. He’s a purist, really — like Murrow, his delivery and choice of topics are often fueled by a measured sense of moral outrage. Murrow’s anger over Vietnam and Joe McCarthy Red-baiting is Cooper’s anger over Katrina and world famine. Cooper never gets hysterical, like some of the other cable stars, but you know when he’s pissed. There’s a little bit of righteous anger that’s damn sexy. He’s the Thinking Woman’s Newsman.
> Update: TVNewser hears Elle is issuing a correction in print next month because the article read “For the past two ratings quarters, he’s had the No. 1 news show at 10 p.m. — beating Greta Van Susteren’s On the Record.” AC 360 was #1 in the A25-54 demo during the first and second quarter of 2008, not the third.
(image courtesy of Elle Magazine)