Phil Rosenthal writes another terrific TV news column at the Chicago Tribune, and among other acid observations, points out the importance of managing your brand, especially if you're CNN's Anderson Cooper:
Cooper, the one-time ABC reality-show host officially cast as anchor/reporter but seeming to be gunning of late to replace Larry King, is being promoted as a personality at a network founded on the quaint premise that news--not newscasters and not glitterati--should be the draw.
If you're CNN, perhaps you're apt to try anything, having trailed Fox News Channel for so long. But having just about every show last Tuesday--Lou Dobbs' program was a notable exception--talk up Cooper's Jolie interview that night or the World Refugee Day cause Jolie wanted to promote probably isn't the long-term way to do it.
The interlaced campaigns to sell Cooper and his best-selling memoir pay off only if he delivers the goods. You would think a man whose mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, is a brand name herself would caution him, if not his bosses, about what happens when branding goes bad.
Does CNN really want to be known as the Celebrity News Network?
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» Chicago Trib on CNN's Cooper: When branding goes bad
