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Covering the war in Iraq is a challenging assignment for journalists, said CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper. “It’s unlike any other war. You can’t go into anyone’s home or stay anywhere for longer than 15 minutes without the word spreading. You become a target in that neighborhood and all the people in the neighborhood become a target.”
Anderson Cooper was at Southern Methodist University on Tuesday, Nov. 14, as part of the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series. He spoke to more than 1,000 SMU and high school students in the afternoon at the Turner Construction Student Forum and to a sold-out house that evening in McFarlin Auditorium.
Following are questions and answers from the Forum, which was moderated by SMU senior journalism major and Hunt Leadership scholar Gabe Travers..
What corner of the world is not getting covered by journalists?
Iraq is the hardest story to tell right now logistically and in terms of reporters’ security. It is such a big country and we can’t get to many parts of the country. CNN reporters live in our own private compound with our own private security. We’ve hired former British special forces agents for our security.
It’s unlike any other war I’ve ever been in. I didn’t have security when I went to Sarajevo or Somalia during those wars. Reporters have become targets since the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. You can’t do all the traditional things reporters do like hang out where people are and meet them in their homes because as soon as you leave insurgents will come and kill them. I think you’re going to see TV crews pulling out of there.
Do you think there is a political bias in the
media today?
I think there is bias in everything, but I don’t think it’s the way the people think it is. I have no one from above telling me what is going to be on my program. We do a conference call early in the morning after reading eight newspapers and checking the Web. Then we decide what is going to be on the show that night. The problem is when you have everyone of a like mind and similar background sitting around the table in New York or in Washington, you end up with people who view things the same way. Sometimes they are all conservatives, sometimes they are all liberals.
Media bias is a huge thing. I think about it every day and in everything I do, I take it really seriously. I think the best way to get around it is to have people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and opinions in a room coming up with what you’re going to cover. I’m a big believer in not wearing my opinion on my sleeve.
MSNBC clearly is trying to be the liberal network right now and Fox is leaning to the right, particularly with its night programs. I think facts are facts. I don’t think there should be Republican news and Democrat news. The audience is smart enough to make up their own minds.
What journalists did you look up to as you were coming up through the business?
I grew up watching Dan Rather, Bill Moyers, and Ted Koppel.
I went to high school with Tom Brokaw’s kids. In 1991 when the U.S. was restoring Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti, two days before the invasion I took a bus from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. On the bus was Tom Brokaw with a bunch of thugs for security. It was the weirdest bus ride. I was working for Channel One and I was by myself. I’d left my producer back at the border because he was dehydrated.
We arrived in Port-au-Prince at midnight. We can hear gunfire in the background. When the bus stops, the bus driver throws my suitcase off the top of the bus and it lands in a pile of human excrement. Brokaw has a car waiting there. When he asks where I am staying. I replied with my voice cracking, “I don’t know. I really have no idea what I am going to do,” thinking I know his kids and he’ll say “No problem, we have extra rooms at the big fancy hotel where we’re staying. Come and stay with us.”
Instead he says, “Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
In retrospect, I’m glad he said that. I did figure it out.
How did growing up as the son of a celebrity
(Gloria Vanderbilt) affect your life?
I never knew growing up that my mom was famous. To me it seemed normal. I never paid attention to it. We had famous people over at the house like Charlie Chaplin and Truman Capote. I thought these were odd adults but I never knew what their story was. To me, the greatest privilege of growing up as I did was knowing at a very young age that celebrities are just as miserable, if not more so, as everyone else. Once you realize that, it is freeing. Our society is geared to making people think they want to be celebrities and thinking that these people somehow know something that we don’t know and that they have a better life than other people have.
My dad was a writer and my mom painted. Being creative and contributing to something was very much valued in my house.
Other Links:
The Daily Campus coverage of Anderson Cooper at SMU.
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