Gasp, flail. Monday, March 26

There's a Vagina Fair, and we were not informed? Whatever the case, Anderson is leading in the polls. You can insert your own phallic joke here, and here.

posted by Janis @ 17:24, ,

It's official. Tuesday, March 20

Michael Musto is the Worst Person On Earth. In his new column for the Village Voice, he attacks the Thomas Roberts piece, but in a different sort of way. His usual tactic is to prod and poke celebs to come out, but, lo and behold, Thomas is already out. So, of course, he attacks the piece for not talking about Thomas being say, saying "by 14, Thomas was surely already gay—look at the photos."

It's entirely possible he missed the point of the whole special, and sat there with his little gay scorecard, waiting to award points based on mentions of the boyfriend's name, use of rainbow flags, and tightness of t-shirts. That must be why he didn't comment on how the story is promoting awareness of the lenience granted to convicted sex offenders, something other media outlets have been spending more time on, even since last week.

Sadly, Musto won't be happy until every gay, out or not, is wearing tiny shorts and dancing on top of bars, proclaiming him to be their king, shouting, "Thank you for outing us! Now lay in a pile of our big hard sweaty muscles!"

posted by Janis @ 13:08, ,

Weird. Friday, March 16

Anderson made a post on the 360 blog earlier today, and it disappeared about three hours later. Thankfully, some intrepid nerds hadn't yet refreshed the page, and we present it here. There's no shame in being bored at work and randomly updating the blog, Cooper. None at all.

Friday, March 16, 2007

From snow to Southeast Asia

New Yorkers awoke this morning to a fresh blanket of snow. It was admittedly somewhat jarring. (Remember when you were a kid and snow was so exciting, at what age does it become annoying?)

I'm heading to Southeast Asia tomorrow morning, so there's always a lot of last minute stuff I have to do, and trudging through the snow just makes it that much harder. I've been getting shots for things I'd never even heard of, who knew you need a vaccine for Japanese Encephalitis? For years I never got shot when I traveled. I figured it wasn't worth the hassle. Considering my cameraman Neil was hospitalized after our recent Brazil trip (he'd been bitten by a spider according to one doctor) and my other cameraman Phil had some bug lay eggs inside him, I've decided to get all the shots I can, and I've promised myself I will actually take my malaria medicine with me this time.

We'll be in Southeast Asia next week broadcasting from a variety of locations. I went to school in Vietnam in the early 1990's but I've only been back to the region once since then. I went for the elections in Cambodia, and I'm looking forward to returning to see how the region has changed. We'll be reporting on environmental issues for our "Planet in Peril" series, but we'll also be looking at sex trafficking, in particular the trafficking of children, which is particularly bad in Cambodia.

We had our morning call earlier today, and there are a number of stories we are following for tonight's broadcast. The morning call is always interesting, folks call in from home or the gym or wherever they are to talk about what's happening today. You can usually hear a couple of kids in the background as producers try to maximize time with their families and get work done at the same time.



Plastered in the middle of our newsroom is this dry-erase board. It's where we lay out the day's show. The words "Ask Believe Receive" are written on the top. I think someone put it up there as a joke when we did a segment on "The Secret." No one's bothered to erase it yet.

Anyway, we were just meeting in front of what we call the "big board." And for now, it's a work in progress. That's okay, it's early. Usually, whatever we put on the board now gets changed later anyway. Still, there are some stories that will definitely make the cut.



One of them is Valerie Plame Wilson. The former CIA operative testified before Congress today and blamed the White House for blowing her cover. But is that true? The Washington Post had put out an editorial several years ago saying, Plame's husband was actually responsible for what happened to her career. I asked him about that a couple of weeks ago and he categorically denied it. We'll look at the facts and find out what exactly she was doing over at the agency.



Jeff Koinange has a fascinating profile about the very strange President of Gambia. This guy has no formal medical training, but he claims he can cure people of AIDS. Actually he claims he can only do it on certain days of the week. He says the treatment came to him in a dream.

From there, things get really bizarre. It's a really interesting story, the kind you won't see anywhere else.

That's it for now. I'm off to take another look at the big board.

Ask. Believe Receive. Sure, why not?

Posted By Anderson Cooper: 2:32 PM ET
0 Comments | Add a Comment

posted by Janis @ 17:44, ,

Broken Record: Now with Imus and Olbermann! Thursday, March 15

Michael Musto was at it again, on Countdown this time. From TVNewser:
That was quite an insinuation on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night. Speaking about the Ryan Seacrest/Simon Cowell buzz, guest Michael Musto said: "This was the gayest TV since Anderson Cooper introduced Thomas Roberts the other night."
Yes, two gay men merely sitting together makes for the GAYEST TV EVER. And then the Post gets all up in the same grill, kind of.

Guess it's gonna be one of those days. As in, fabulous.

posted by Janis @ 09:22, ,

We wished. Wednesday, March 14

We wished real hard, and two of our favourite things collide in mere minutes. Anderson interviewing Andy Richter, glorious.

Happy Pi Day!

posted by Janis @ 09:24, ,

Another early morning! Monday, March 12

Anderson's filling in tomorrow morning while Regis has a bypass. Triple! That's tomorrow at 9 eastern. We'd rather it be Wednesday, with Andy Richter as guest, but alas, we do not book these things.

posted by Janis @ 14:59, ,

Blogging before noon.

Seriously weird.

The SF Chronicle has an interesting article about a journalism study, with a brief Anderson-as-brand mention:
The report said electronic media are in transition from what it calls the "Argument Culture," epitomized by the canceled CNN shoutfest "Crossfire," to the "Answer Culture," exemplified by the branded persona of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and the exposure of child predators by NBC's "Dateline."
Lots of other interesting things regarding blogs and the rise thereof as well. Very worth checking out.

Of course, tonight is the Sins of the Father special, something that has us bawling for about a week straight. We've had eyes for that Thomas Roberts ever since he used to fill in for Mike Galanos on the old old Prime News Tonight. It's one thing to read articles about it, but it's another to actually hear him speaking about it. Seems like they're previewing the story this morning as well as Sunday morning, and there's been about a billion and two commercials. We're excited to see this sort of content on 360, and have stocked up on tissues.

Edit: Thomas wrote an article for CNN.com about it this morning.

posted by Janis @ 09:52, ,

Gentlemen, Behold! Sunday, March 4

Alright, here's the story as I heard it a few days ago.

A girl, very active in Anderson-related fandom to the point of writing fan fiction and posting to closed-communities, gets an interning job with CNN, 360 specifically. For some reason, girl thinks it's kosher to post about her experiences as an intern. We of the media know CNN frowns upon this, and has fired people for less.

But it wasn't just about her experiences as an intern, a lot of it was fangirl squealing about Anderson. One post went into detail about how she got to see Anderson bending over! And saw his bare back! For half an hour!

And yet, this blog claims her postings were entirely professional. They can say that, because this girl has carefully gone back and deleted all of her posts. Many of them were not professional, but as they are gone now, we don't have any proof. Smart girl.

CNN found her posts, though, and the community is apparently rocked by a spy in their midst! And so, they fired her. From her UNPAID job as an intern. And now she's sad. Aw.

So, I felt the need to call bullshit. Because this is dangerous. I'm sure CNN has enough creeps to wade through, resume-wise, but now they have to wonder how many of those people are crazy fans who are willing to report their comings and goings on the internet. At least they know they can find them, and weed them out, and prevent them from getting further jobs where the same thing will happen.

CNN had every right to fire this girl. As an intern, she should have known her grip on the job was tenuous at best. They don't have to give you any warning, one fuck up and you are gone. And I find it hard to believe that she didn't sign some sort of confidentiality agreement that would have prevented a saner person from posting their experiences. And as a member of some very active communities on the internet, she should have realised that there is no such thing as privacy.

It gives us, as fans of Anderson Cooper, a bad name. And that's why I'm upset. As a fan herself, this girl should have known the security surrounding him, the problems with stalkers. CNN doesn't know if she was rational or not, they just figure it's better for themselves to get rid of any threats.

And don't think I didn't see that dig at "blogs that are negative towards 360." There's a difference between being negative and being honest, and I am doing the latter. I don't enjoy watching 360 right now. I'd be a dirty liar if I said I did, and if I went to this blog everyday bouncing and happy. I do not. I am not that blind sort of fan who can just take her brain out to watch. If you are, maybe you're happier than I am, sure. But in the same way that 360 has that wonderful "Keeping Them Honest" segment, I would like to call the show on their bullshit too, and I think I do, sometimes.

This is all very much opinion today, make no mistake about it. Some things are facts, but as the posts I'm talking about have been deleted, there's no way to prove them. I've seen them, others have seen them, but I seem to be one of the few people speaking out about this, so I don't expect anyone to come forward and back me up.

I hope this girl is happy with the bad name she's giving each and every one of us. I hope you won't see her as some poor-little-girl, like they want you to believe. She is not. Fans getting jobs near the object of their obsession is dangerous. Maybe one day, these people will realise why CNN did what they did.

posted by Janis @ 18:32, ,

The gays again. Friday, March 2

Now it's the Houston Voice, that leading publication in the...okay, we've never heard of it either. Apparently, the March issue of Out has a gossipy column by Josh Kilmer-Purcell that totally dishes. On stuff that happened ten years ago. Here's a peek, typos included.
"When I spent a couple of weeks observing ABC's 'World New Tonight' fpr am advertising campaign a decade ago, it was common knowledge in the newsroom even then that Anderson was gay (at the time he was a news correspondent for ABC). Anderson's sexual orientation became even more apparent when one evening he introduced me in a gay bar to the man he was currently dating — most likely as an excuse to stop my drunken propositioning, but still..."
And of course, Koval of the Houston Voice cites that fount of wisdom, Kevin Naff of the Washington Blade, famous entirely for his previous bashings of Cooper. Apparently, not outing yourself in a press release while wearing tiny glittery shorts means you're "..letting all of us lesser gay mortals do the heavy lifting in our fight for equality."

Sigh. Please take note, we aren't all douchebags. This is just seems to be an easy target topic right now amongst self-righteous queers who think they're better than the rest of us.

posted by Janis @ 00:01, ,

Tornados. Thursday, March 1

We're waiting for Rob Marciano to turn up some where, bedraggled and behatted.

Anderson's on Conan O'Brien tonight, along with Rob Corddry. Corddry has his own show on Fox, The Winner, debuting Sunday.

Oh, and check out the trailer for Andy Barker, PI. Here's to hoping Andy Richter's finally found a vehicle a stupid network won't cancel! And we always love Tony Hale.

And no, none of this has anything to do with Anderson Cooper, but there is literally nothing to speak of today. Not a thing.

posted by Janis @ 15:37, ,