Et tu, Anderson Cooper?

An icon is tarnished as a network fades into obscurity.

When I was in junior high school, every day during morning homeroom we had Channel One on the small boxy TV that hung in the far corner of the class.

Typically the program played in the background as students talked, doodled, or scrambled to finish the homework they didn’t get around to the night before.

It was very early in the morning for a teenager and the banter on the screen was always light with occasional slightly educational topics such as how peripheral vision works.

Then came Anderson Cooper, an unknown back then. He had a desire to be a serious reporter. Cooper found his way overseas, first reporting on life in Myanmar, then Vietnam, and then into war torn countries such as Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda.

Suddenly students weren’t ignoring the TV anymore. Witnessing real stories, real wars, real tragedy made us pay attention. For myself, it corresponded to a time when I was becoming more interested in world affairs, American politics, and how the two mixed. 

Anderson Cooper left an impression on me, not just by bringing real world news stories into our classroom, but by showing that someone can make a difference if they are driven to do so. I always remembered his face and name after he left Channel One.

When he appeared on other news programs I recognized him immediately, and when he got his own show on CNN I tuned in. I felt he was a true journalist in the sense of greats that had come before him, those who pushed hard hitting stories and were driven to show the truth for the good of the public.

All of this is why I am so disappointed today.

CNN has been on a downhill slide for a long time. Instead of reporting the news, they’ve been working to sensationalize it. Being the first twenty-four hour news network meant that news needed to be far more attention grabbing than it had before.

The talking head format has been a detriment to news, as has the large panel discussions where everyone talks over each other and each pundit only gets short snippets of time to attempt to discuss serious issues. The panels are now so large they have multiple tables for the biggest stories and elections, like families at Thanksgiving trying to fit all of the relatives into a small single family home.

Giving a twice impeached, corrupt conman, proven sexual predator, insurrection causing former President a town hall full of supporters and allowing him to spread his fascist lies was a new low for CNN.

It may very well be the inflection point we look back at when discussing how CNN collapsed into obscurity. A desire for a short term boost in ratings even if it permanently drives away their regular viewers, and even if it puts America at risk.

Trump got to push his election lies. He got to disparage the woman he was just found guilty of sexually assaulting, defaming, and ordered to pay $5 million to for his crimes. He lied about the border wall and about past statements. He got to do all of it while being cheered on in real time by his supporters.

While appalling, and foolish, it was not surprising that the new CEO, Chris Licht, would try such a move. A conservative billionaire sits on the Warner Bros. Discovery board and has publicly said that he wants CNN transformed. Conveniently Licht has said he wants to remove partisan reporting, although it appears more that he wants bothsidesism instead of accuracy.

Licht’s own defensive statements after the town hall have only made the situation worse. One of many:

"Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news. Made a LOT of news.

That is our job.”

It is not a news agency's job to make news. It is their job to report news, and to do so accurately. Licht’s statement is confirmation that what he wants from his network is to manufacture sound bites and headlines, not to find, research, and report on issues.

That mindset should be enough for everyone to move on from CNN. And it seems that is exactly what the network now fears, though they should have had the foresight to see what this town hall would do to their network.

Licht turned to one of CNN’s most trusted anchors, someone with a long history of hard hitting journalism, to try and defend the network’s decision. At the top of his show, Anderson Cooper dedicated over two minutes to defending the town hall.

Cooper admitted that Trump has tried to destroy our Democracy. Disturbing was said numerous times, along with awful, both about Trump and the crowd cheering him on and yet, Cooper also said this:

“You have the right to be outraged today and angry and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?”

This was a purely condescending approach to America being outraged over the ill-advised town hall that helps an authoritarian reach his base and spread his lies.

Anderson also discusses how Trump is the front runner of the Republican party and may be President again. He doesn’t pause to mention all of the lawsuits against Trump and that depending on what he is convicted of, Trump may not even be able to become President.

He doesn’t say how Trump becoming President would be devastating to our Democracy, or how Trump recently said that he doesn’t believe in keeping the Constitution.

CNN could have had a sit down with Trump in a format that allowed for fact checking every one of his lies in real time. They could have had an audience that was made up of average Americans, most of whom don’t support Trump and wouldn’t have cheered while he insulted a woman he has been found guilty of sexually assaulting.

Instead CNN decided to give Trump an open forum to say anything he wanted and they filled the seats with his fans.

Then they had the audacity to send out one of their most well known anchors to try and chide all of America for being upset with their decision. To suggest we’re wrong for being against their program that did nothing but help a tyrant get closer to becoming President.

There are many other news networks, and Americans can never escape hearing about Trump or the inane lies he tells. No one is in a silo away from Trump’s influence and reach.

On top of it all, I was forced to lose respect for someone I admired. Someone who showed me that you can shine a light on the darkness in this world and push for positive change, is now also someone who showed me how fragile integrity can be when ratings are on the line.

Anderson Cooper once said he realized he needed to get out of war torn countries because being around so many dead bodies was making him numb.

He’d see a pile of corpses and think “it's a dozen, it’s not so bad”. Cooper said what finally snapped him out of that numbness was a picture another person took of Cooper photographing a dead woman for his own photo collection. That moment let him know he needed to stop. That he needed to report on some lighter fare in order to gain back a proper perspective of life.

Someone needs to force Anderson Cooper to watch the speech he gave defending CNN and to see the resulting emotions and responses it created.

Maybe then, Anderson will realize that he has lost perspective on the political reality of Trump because he’s been buried in that world for far too long and is numb to the danger his network is helping to unleash.