Vanity Fair Best Dressed

Anderson Cooper in the VF Hall of Fame

Wired Interview

Wired's Steven Edwards interview: "Anderson Cooper Hopes Monday's Debate Throws Candidates out of Their Comfort Zones"

Another interview

CNN’s Anderson Cooper Says There Are Still Many Uncertainties Surrounding Next Monday’s Democratic Debate Held at The Citadel During Interview On ETV Radio’s “The Big Picture on the Radio”

BlogHer interviews Anderson

... about the YouTube debate and other things.

My fifteen minutes with Cooper left me buzzing. I wanted to go live in Anderson-world. It’s rare you’re in the presence of someone really imbued with the purpose of their work, but that’s how I felt after our talk. It made me want to work harder. Cooper is someone admits he works “all the time,” but what I emerged with from our brief interview was a sense of the importance of passion and social justice.

Eau d'Anderson?

We at unanchored don't necessarily believe this story. We do, however, think it's hilarious:

There's still a chance that Anderson Cooper will have a scent of his own. We recently revealed that Tom Ford asked Anderson to become the spokesperson for a new cologne he's creating that he wanted to name after Cooper, but Anderson turned him down. Anderson told his fashion maven mom Gloria Vanderbilt about the offer and she LIKED the idea and pushed her son to give it some more thought. That's exactly what Anderson is doing, and if Tom Ford gets his way, "Coop" could be out by the holiday season.

(via Janet Charlton)

But Tom? If I may? Not Coop... too declassee. Anderson. That's the ticket. Fly off the shelves.

Dr. Richard Visser Meets With CNN’s Anderson Cooper

Aruban Dr. Richard Visser met with Anderson Cooper from CNN’s program 360, in the first of several meetings planned on childhood obesity.

The research conducted by Dr. Richard Visser on childhood obesity, implemented programs such as the Sailboat Food Guide and the eXtreme H Games on Aruba and Visser’s new leadership role which is taking him on new roads with children around the world showing a light at the end of the tunnel for children and their parents.

More here.

Dave Walker interviews Anderson Cooper

... in the Times Picayune.

More from the TCA tour

From the Buffalo News:

• The Amanpour session was followed by a depressing CNN session about an upcoming series, “Planet in Peril.” But there was a moment of comic relief when anchor Anderson Cooper was asked how valuable wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin of the Discovery Channel was on the series.

“In the Amazon, we were repeatedly bitten by things, and Jeff could sort of identify them and tell us whether or not it was severe or not,” said Cooper. “One of our cameramen was actually hospitalized after being bitten by a spider. The other one had a spider lay eggs inside him. So it’s comforting when you have something growing in you to have someone like Jeff there.”

Planet in Peril gets double booking

Announced at the Television Critics Association press tour:

CNN and Discovery are teaming up to give the news network’s upcoming eco-focused documentary Planet in Peril play on both networks.

The show will run for four hours over two nights on CNN Oct. 23 and 24 at 9 p.m., and will replay on Discovery. The reason: the show is hosted by Jeff Corwin, a marquee talent for Discovery’s Animal Planet, in addition to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

The deal for Corwin to appear in the special was arranged by the two networks months ago when Billy Campbell was still Discovery Networks President, CNN U.S. President Jon Klein told B&C in an interview. Campbell was cut during a senior executive restructure in April under new Discovery President/CEO David Zaslav. As part of the talks, Discovery agreed to the replay, he said.

It is not uncommon for one news entity to cut such a one-time deal for talent to do a project on another network. CNN’s Cooper, for example, regularly reports for CBS’s newsmagazine 60 Minutes.

CNN Heroes Gala news

From the Turner Pressroom:

CNN Taps Joel Gallen to Produce ‘CNN Heroes’ Gala

Global Effort to Honor Heroes Receives 2,500 Nominations from 45 Countries in First Nine Weeks of Submissions

CNN has secured producer-director Joel Gallen, who has helmed ambitious telethon events supporting victims of both the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina, to produce “CNN Heroes,” a year-end awards gala to honor ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary deeds. In a live global broadcast from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the event will include musical performances, celebrities presenting the honorees’ stories, and documentary tributes to the CNN Heroes and their accomplishments.

The gala is the culmination of the network’s global “CNN Heroes” initiative, which shines a light on individuals who have made their marks in areas ranging from the environment to civil rights to human health. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, along with an array of notable co-hosts to be announced later, will present “CNN Heroes” during a special live global broadcast on CNN/U.S. and CNN International on Thursday, Dec. 6, at 9 p.m. (ET).

“There are so few opportunities to celebrate the everyday heroes among us and to remind us all of what a difference just one person can actually make,” Gallen said. “I am proud to be a part of this worldwide event, and I look forward to telling these heroes’ stories in a way that reflects their dedication, their passion and their influence on our society.”

“We care deeply about the world that we cover, and we felt it was important to spotlight those people we are seeing who are dedicating their lives to help others.” said Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide. “I am very pleased to welcome Joel aboard and am glad that we will be able to tap into his expertise for this important project.”

For more than two months, CNN Worldwide has featured everyday heroes across its television networks, digital services and at www.CNN.com/Heroes. To date, CNN has received more than 2,500 nominations of people from 45 countries and continues to solicit nominations from its global audience. A blue-ribbon panel will select the winners.

Gallen of Tenth Planet Productions brings a wealth of creativity and experience in live-event tributes and awards-show productions. Only six days after Sept. 11, 2001, he produced and directed the musical telethon, America: A Tribute to Heroes, for which he received both an Emmy and a Peabody award. Among his many other credits, Gallen produced Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast, the MTV Movie Awards and several White House event specials during the Clinton administration.

Rumor mill

Rumors continue to surface about Anderson Cooper and the CBS Nightly News, Katie Couric notwithstanding:

Will CBS ditch Couric for a more traditional anchor this fall? It could happen. Couric is planning to do more work for “60 Minutes,” which could mean she’s planning to spend less time on the “Evening News.”

If that happens, who would step into the seat once warmed by Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather?

CBS doesn’t have a Charlie Gibson waiting in the wings — a comfy, familiar presence who can slip right into the job virtually unnoticed. But it could tap Anderson Cooper, who (perhaps because of the gray hair and CNN resume) has a hard-news aura about him.

We here at unanchored don't claim to know Mr. Cooper, or be able to read his mind or anything of that nature, but just from things he has said in interviews or written, it's hard to believe he would find the job at all rewarding, except perhaps financially.

Where in the world is Anderson Cooper?

According to this blogger, he is (or was) in Yellowstone, filming something about wolves.

More lying with statistics - a primer

Welcome to TVNewser readers, and kudos to Brian for posting our rebuttal to the Chi-Trib nonsense; we did, after all, use his own stats to prepare it, so he no doubt felt obliged.

Here's yet another way people who want to massage the data can make figures say whatever they want; ignore trends and use inappropriate periods to compare against.

Say you have the following two shows, rated over uniform periods, in arbitrary quantities:

Show A: 100 ... 80 ... 60 ... 40
Show B: 30 ... 40 ... 50 ... 60

Which show is the better bet, ratings-wise? Proponents of Show A could easily say it was superior - after all, its average rating over the period is 70, versus a mere 45 for Show B. Never mind that Show B clearly is growing an audience and Show A is losing theirs.

Remember to look behind the figures and question the motives of people promulgating bogus factoids like the Chi-Trib canard.

Lying with statistics or the Aaron Brown Got Better Ratings meme

Aaron Brown's contract with CNN has officially expired and now he's talking. (here, here and here.) Some people - but not, to his credit, Mr. Brown himself - are using the opportunity to dust off the old "Aaron Brown got better ratings than Anderson Cooper gets now" urban legend. We were saddened to see even Rachel Sklar at Eat the Press, whom we usually adore, propagating this data atrocity (admittedly in a footnote), so we thought we would address it here.

People are getting these bogus figures by looking at the program ranker figures, which lists viewers by program, rather than the hourly figures. AC360 spans two hours, and replaced both NewsNight and a repeat of Lou Dobbs. BOTH hours outscore the shows they replaced, but because the 11PM hour is always lower, it brings down the average of the whole show, and thus makes it appear (to the stupid) that Anderson Cooper's numbers are lower than Aaron Brown's were.

Another 'how to lie with statistics' technique is to compare a datapoint to an average. Take Larry King's 'Paris' rating, for instance, and act like he gets that every night. Or the ratings from, say, right after 9/11. Yet another technique is to compare unlike months, say, November to May. People's viewing varies across the year; some months ALL ratings are lower and some months more people are home and watching. You have to compare like to like to get VALID comparisons.

Here's some real data, drawn from TVNewser's archives.

June '05
Aaron at 10PM - P2 623, Demo 208
Lou at 11PM - P2 314, Demo 114

June '06
AC360 at 10PM - P2 784, Demo 252
AC360 at 11PM - P2 481, Demo 191

June '07
AC360 at 10PM - P2 790, Demo 283
AC360 at 11PM - P2 488, Demo 205

Now please. We don't have a thing against Mr. Brown, who seems to be a nice and astute gentleman, but can we please put a rest to the Aaron's ratings were better than Anderson's shtick? It's simply not true.

New wallpapers and macros

Got your Anderson Cooper wallpapers right here - check out our downloads page. Also check out our photos page for new macros. (For the uninitiated, macros are images with funny captions.)

New photos

New Anderson Cooper pics in our celebshots and candids photo albums, found on our Photos Page. New wallpapers and macros coming soon.