The Miami Herald's Glenn Garvin writes a brave contrarian piece about Anderson Cooper, the most overhyped man in showbiz--oops, I mean, the newsbiz.
So no swanky fabulous Manhattan parties for Garvin. Obviously Glenn doesn't care about staying on the good side of the Beautiful People if that means that he has to lie to his readers. And so Garvin fearlessly declares, "For all the attention Cooper gets in other news media, he's as much a part of the problem at CNN as anybody else."
And then, just to prove that Garvin doesn't care about getting invited to swell parties on the west coast, he dumps on The Wrap, the buzz-heavy website started last year by Sharon Waxman. Says Glenn: "TheWrap's claim that "Cooper's departure could be perilous for CNN. Cooper's ratings are one of the only bright spots in the network's schedule" is bizarre." Biff! Pow! Some will accuse Glenn of name-calling, but here at The Cable Game, we call it truth-telling. Because, as Glenn points out, Cooper's ratings were actually lower than Larry King's. You read that right: If anything, Cooper was dragging down King--not the other way around.
(And gee, where have we seen this scenario before: A fawning press telling the world how valuable a media fave is to the company, when the truth is just the opposite? That the media have, in fact, had no clothes. Oh wait! I know, it was ex-News Corp. COO Peter Chernin, endlessly dictating to reporters how great he was, and then having his copy read back to him in the pages of big media outlets as he was engaged in unsuccessful negotiations to stay in his job last year. Sample headline: "Murdoch faces Titanic hole at News Corp. as top man Chernin goes." Once again, the truth was just the opposite--News Corp. stock soared after Chernin left.)
Hats off to Gutsy Glenn Garvin!
In the meantime, Cooper and CNN are busy spinning away -- everyone's happy at CNN, that he has no plans to leave, yadda yadda. But when we step back and recollect that CNN has lied each and every time when there’s been gossip about an anchor leaving/joining, how can we even believe them this time?
