6.00 Reporter's Notebook

Anderson Cooper

Anderson Hays Cooper is the first person that came to mind for this assignment when asked which journalist I admire the most. Cooper is currently a broadcast journalist, author, talk show host, and game show host. He started his career in 1990 and is still active today. During college, he spent two summers as an intern at the CIA. He had no journalistic education but he decided to follow a career in journalism. Cooper graduated from Yale University and tried to get a job at ABC answering telephones but failed. He worked at Channel One, a small company at the time, as a fact checker but longed to be an on-air reporter. This is what drove him to make a fake press pass (press pass: grants some type of special privilege to journalists.) He entered Myanmar (Burma) with his fake press pass, met with students fighting the Burmese government, and was able to sell his 'home-made news segment' to Channel One.

Cooper's decision to make a fake press pass wasn't entirely ethical, but the decision opened the gates to a bright future in on-air (broadcast) journalism. Since then, he's been a co-host on ABC, a host on a reality show "The Mole", provided reports for 20/20 and World News Now, and a prime-time anchor at CNN. He had his own day time talk show, Anderson Live, which ended in 2013 but continues Anderson Cooper 360, another talk show he has had since 2003. He published a New York Times bestselling book in May 2006 about his life and work in Africa, Iraq, and Louisiana called Dispatches from the Edge. It seems Cooper's had multiple jobs at the same time in his life almost always.

 He's a hard worker, still very active in his career, and has won 11 awards so far ranging from Emmy Awards to GLAAD Media Awards for feature stories and coverages of breaking news. There is no top of his career because he's been around for so many years working with so many different groups and organizations; he will always be at the top. He's recently had emergency surgery for appendicitus on December 2nd, 2014 and was mysteriously absent from an episode of Anderson Cooper 360, but in telling his fans what had happened, he also mentioned that he would be back on air the very next day. To be someone like him, one would have to be really determined and love what they do. This is why I admire Anderson Cooper the most out of every news anchor or journalist that I could ever think of.

Sources:
"Anderson Cooper." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 8 Jan. 2015.
 Steiner, Amanda. "Why Was Anderson Cooper Absent from 360º on Monday?" PEOPLE.com. 2 Dec. 2014. Web. 8 Jan. 2015.