Anderson, You're Letting Me Down

I need to go on a little mini-rant about Anderson Cooper.

Personally, I love Anderson Cooper. Of course he beautiful, but he is also a wonderful journalist. Despite his mother being a Vanderbilt, he is a self-made man who was determined to become successful in his own right, and he has become very accomplished. During the Egyptian Revolution, Anderson would devote his entire show to covering the events and he received a lot of criticism for this. Criticism which, in my opinion, he did not deserve at all. He responded to these criticisms by essentially saying that the Egyptian Revolution was extremely important and the Egyptian people deserved to be heard. No matter what, he said, he would do what he believed was right. This takes tremendous integrity, especially in a career like his where ratings are important. I gained a lot of respect for him for doing this.

Now, Syria and Libya are in the midst of incredible violence. For a while, Anderson would spend a good deal amount of time on Libya while others in his position didn't and once again, I would be impressed by him. The past several nights, however, this has gone away. Tonight and last night, the first 30 minutes (half of the show) were devoted to Donald Trump and his "birther" comments on Obama. Sure, this is important to the coming election I guess. Personally I think it is all being blown out of proportion. Especially compared to what is happening in Libya and Syria. At the half-hour break tonight and last night, Anderson said something along the lines of, "Coming up, violence erupts in Syria and the uprising in Libya continues." This causes me to get excited and feel that my faith in him has been restored. Then, the show comes back on and he covers these stories for about 5 minutes. Combined. And then I get frustrated and sad and disappointed again.

Maybe I expect too much of him. I know he is only one person and he is responsible for ratings. I also know that he cannot get into Syria to do the reporting. It's just that his coverage of Egypt was so inspiring to me and I felt his passion. This hasn't come across in his coverage of other revolutions. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because he hasn't been in the countries to do his coverage. Maybe he just doesn't connect for some reason. To be fair, his passion did come across in the beginning of his coverage of Libya. I don't know what happened but it makes me sad. Anderson is someone I look up to tremendously and that is why I care so much. As MLK said, "There can be no great disappointment where there is not great love." I am disappointed, but only because I know what he is capable of and because I have a great amount of respect for him.

I sincerely hope this is a bad phase and his coverage will return to its outstanding norm soon. I care about the Royal Wedding and the election just as much as the next person. I can't deny the sometimes-embarassing amount of time I spend on celebrity gossip. However, that is not Anderson's job. Or, it shouldn't be. I'm not saying that he should only cover the Middle East. There is nothing wrong with mentioning the wedding or Trump or anything else. I just don't think Trump deserves half of Anderson's show the way people dying for the rights we take for granted do.