I get news from print media as the Lord intended. Okay, and msn. Didn't know this Cooper Anderson fellow, the spout of "emotional pornography masquerading as magnanimity."

That line is powerful, loaded, and fun to say. You piqued my curiosity. Googled him.

Well, Jake, he's pretty! From his photo I'd guess that early in life he had to choose between broadcast journalism and modelling Calvin Klein. I think Whitman would have liked him.

Kidding aside, this made me wonder, beyond the jading effect you noted, about the difference between giving a voice to suffering and using another's suffering to sell one's emotional wares.

Is the latter not an insidious piracy that robs not only the victims of a voice they've never had, but also the viewers (or readers) of the right to witness the scene without excessive commentary from an intermediary hawking his or her own image?

We can't know Cooper Anderson's motives or the degree of his sincerity. Maybe he doesn't know either. I imagine there were plenty of sentimental viewers moved by his display of smarm.

Hating him, rather than hating the degraded media for offering us spectacle when we ask for news may not be very Whitman-like, but your objection alerts us to the dangers when we dare speak or write as witnesses.

He has a certain kind of commodified handsomeness about him, and I'm sure Whitman could have found him attractive, but observing him on the television doing his thing would surely have been a turn off.

Make no mistake: I do hate the degraded media. I also hate the characters who step so readily into the scenarios this media offers to become the embodiments of that degradation, indeed, even to advance it. Aaron Brown, Cooper's CNN colleague, so surprisingly tender in the days after September 11th, now so happy to have been elevated to his present office, exuding self-satisfaction even as performing the tragic news of tragedy. Ugh.

This is piracy. And not of the good kind.

Anderson Cooper, Cooper Anderson. Whatever.

It was considerate of you not to point out I reversed it. That's what he gets for having a name that sounds like an accounting firm.

Geez, I thought I was the only one who couldn't stomach the great news media sideshow. I'm old enough to remember Walter Cronkite reporting on Viet Nam (but I was very, very young.) The images were disturbing, but the newcasters usually kept poker faces and didn't state how they felt, (which would have been editorializing--a breach of decorum if not unethical journalism.) What do you think has changed?

Why the seduction? With 24-hour news "shows" we have world events presented as entertainment. Is it simply greed- and advertising-driven, do you think, or is there some other reason the media wants to be the viewer's best bud?

Thanks.

"...emotional pornography masquerading as magnanimity..."

Sweet.

drw

I FUCKING HATE ANDERSON COOPER!!!!!!

I hope he gets fired and NEVER gets a job on TV. EVER.
If he does, I hope it's to do coffee for REAL reporters. Man, I just feel like kicking his ass. I bet he'd cry too.

He is the equivalent of the reporter character in Natural Born Killers. He embodies everything that is wrong with mainstream media. He belongs in a show like Extra...

If you look up "tabloid" in Oxford's Dictionary, you'll find ANDERSON COOPER.

Oh by the way, did I mention that I HATE ANDERSON COOPER?????!!!!!!

They kicked Dan Brown, the most decent reporter in CNN for THAT FREAK?

anyway i'm ranting... just my 2 cents.

Very good reading. Peace until next time.
WaltDe

We need to sacrifice Anderson Cooper to AL-Quieda. Then after they behead him I want to watch it on CNN. I hate that fucker and his salt and pepper hair. The only way to ensure survival of the human race is his death by beheading highlander style.