Here's a bunch more of Marvin Kitman's cutting take on the CNN/YouTube debate, starring the reigning diva of The Cable Game, Anderson Cooper--or, as I like to think of His Preeningness, La Anderson Cooper:
Cooper's main job is as the host of Anderson Cooper 360. He was hired in the waning days of the Walter Isaacson- Jamie Kellner administration's attempt to glitz up the news. Cooper was the major plank in the effort to youthanize the news at CNN, which was perceived as the old fart news network.
Coop was 27 with "the ardent look of a Gap model," as one reporter said of his appearance on the scene in 2003, ignoring the fact that he was undoubtedly wearing Gloria Vanderbilt-designed outfits. He was the glamorous son of two celebrities (Gloria Vanderbilt and Wyatt* Cooper), somebody who could appeal to a new generation of news viewers. CNN managers forgot that 18-34s traditionally did not watch news, as his show's early poor ratings proved.
Ouch! But it gets worse:
Cooper had immediate impact. One target audience at the 2003 homecoming of recent graduates at Lock Haven University voted Anderson Cooper the best looking and dumbest newsman of the year.
And Kitman goes on to predict that Wolf Blitzer will be chased out of CNN by Jon "our gimmick is news" Klein.
*Editor's note: Kitman mistakenly wrote "Gary" here--but the famous actor, who died in 1961, was not the father of Anderson, who was born in 1967.
