Profile of Anderson Cooper on Famous Like Me

Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is a New York-based television journalist. Since September 8, 2003, he has anchored Anderson Cooper 360°, a fast-paced weeknight news program on the CNN television network. Anderson now also co-hosts NewsNight with Aaron Brown at 10 PM EST on CNN.

Cooper is the younger son of the writer Wyatt Cooper and the socialite, writer, and artist Gloria Vanderbilt. His older brother, Carter, died in August 1988 at age 23 by jumping from the 14th floor terrace of Vanderbilt's New York City luxury apartment. Gloria Vanderbilt later wrote about her son's death in her book, "A Mother's Story."

Cooper attended The Dalton School in New York City and graduated from Yale in 1989 with a degree in political science. He also studied Vietnamese at the University of Hanoi.

When he graduated from Yale but could not land a job with a major news organization, Cooper set off on his own to a variety of war-torn regions around the globe, filming news reports and sending them to Channel One News, an MTV-style news program broadcast to many schools in the United States. He reported from Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia, among other places. He was occasionally shot at. During his trip in Africa he came down with malaria.

Cooper became a correspondent for ABC News and co-anchored ABC World News Now, but in 2000 he took a job as the host of ABC's reality show The Mole. One executive publicly predicted his move to reality TV would mean the end of his career as a newscaster. However, he left The Mole after its second season to return to broadcast news, now at CNN, in 2001. In 2003 he was made anchor of Anderson Cooper 360°, and in 2005 he was given an additional role as co-anchor on NewsNight with Aaron Brown. The president of CNN for the U.S., Jonathan Klein, called Cooper "the anchorperson of the future."

In January 2005, he was sent to South Asia to cover the tsunami damage. That same month, he also went to Baghdad, Iraq to cover the elections. In February and March 2005, he covered the Cedar Revolution in Beirut, Lebanon. In early April 2005, he reported from Rome, covering the death of Pope John Paul II, and from London, covering the royal wedding. In July 2005, he covered Hurricane Dennis from Pensacola, yielding one of the most memorable bits of footage from that particular storm. He and John Zarella were standing outside a Ramada during the worst of the storm when a large metal sign blew down. Since 2002, he has hosted CNN's New Year's Eve special from Times Square.

During CNN coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he confronted Sen. Mary Landrieu, Sen. Trent Lott, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson about their perception of the government response. A video clip of the Landrieu interview is available here.

Cooper has frequently been involved with gay and lesbian issues, and among the many awards he has won is the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Award for Outstanding TV Journalism for his 20/20 Downtown report on gay high school athlete Corey Johnson. Perhaps partially because of this, there has been much speculation online regarding his sexual orientation. Blogger Andy Towle referred to Cooper as "the most openly closeted gay man in America" after reading a New York Magazine article which reported on the matter as follows:

There has been a lot of chatter on the Internet about the fact that Cooper may or may not be gay, and Village Voice columnist Michael Musto has taken pleasure in quoting the gay magazine Metrosource, which has referred to Cooper as “the openly gay news anchor.” It has been assumed in certain circles in New York partly because he lives what looks to some to be a gay social life. He’s often seen at parties with Barry Diller, and he’s friends with the lead singer from the outré gay rock band the Scissor Sisters. And then there was the tempest in a teapot regarding a slightly heated interview last fall with Jerry Falwell about gay marriage. Some Cooper-obsessed bloggers insist that the anchor outed himself on the air, taking the gay side of the debate and saying, “We pay taxes.” They claim CNN originally posted a transcript with the “we” and then later changed it to “You pay taxes.” Cooper has maintained all along that he said “you.” When I bring up the sexuality issue with Cooper, he says, “You know, I understand why people might be interested. But I just don’t talk about my personal life. It’s a decision I made a long time ago, before I ever even knew anyone would be interested in my personal life. The whole thing about being a reporter is that you’re supposed to be an observer and to be able to adapt with any group you’re in, and I don’t want to do anything that threatens that.”

Cooper is also a current Contributing Editor of Details magazine, and has been featured in Maxim and Esquire magazines. It was recently reported that he signed a US $1 Million contract to write a memoir for HarperCollins.

Cooper currently lives in New York City with his dog, a Welsh Springer Spaniel named Molly.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Anderson Cooper