Eat The Press

Jon Stewart Grills Anderson Cooper on CNN's Mission: "When's it gonna show on air?"

Posted Thursday June 22, 2006 at 01:31 PM

From last night's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" with guest Anderson Cooper:

JS: At CNN is there weirdness? You've shot up through the ranks there. Like, when you throw to Paula Zahn do you ever hear under her breath be like, ["BEEP?"] (laughter) Like, is there anything like - is there any of that? Is there weirdness there?
AC: No, I mean actually people are really - CNN is a nice place to work. There's a real sense of mission and a sense of, you know, people being interested in the news.
JS: When's it gonna show on air?
AC: CNN?
JS: Yeah. That sense of mission.
AC: How do you mean?
JS: Because, I watch CNN a lot.
(Mixed crowd reaction: cheers/boos)
AC: They're still with you.
JS: They don't know what to think right now. They're like, I love Anderson but its Jon's show. The network seems to not know what - do they wanna be...
AC: Are you talking about MSNBC or CNN?
JS: CNN, MSNBC too. It's this sense of like, let's copy Fox in terms of their like kind of nice graphics and loud swoosh noises, and also car chases.
AC: He says, standing in front of nice graphics and loud swoosh noises.
JS: Exactly, well, when you're a parody you go where the money is.

Full Transcript after the jump.

Jon Stewart: Welcome back! My guest tonight - the anchor of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. His new book is called "Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival" - please welcome back to the program Anderson Cooper! Anderson!

(cheers)

JS: How are ya?
Anderson Cooper: I'm alright, I'm alright.
JS: You're wearing pinstripes.
AC: Wow, I got a big graphic.
JS: You got an enormous graphic -
AC: Look at that.
JS: Of your book. And you, sitting in a chair, I'm assuming reading your book.
AC: (laughs)
JS: Did you write this?
AC: Of course I wrote it.
JS: So you sat down - a gentleman of your stature, sat down --
AC: Uh huh.
JS: On a...
AC: Every day and night...
JS: On one of them select typewriters...
AC: Apple laptop.
JS: Apple laptop. And you banged out this book, hit send, and done.
AC: Yeah, no ghost writers, nothing.
JS: Suckers play. (Anderson, crowd laugh) I did a book, I had like fifteen Malaysian kids working in a cellar, 24 hours. You know what the minimum wage for them is? (makes a "zero" gesture)
AC: (continuing to laugh) They're just happy to be warm?
JS: Exactly. Give 'em shoes, they'll write for hours. (low rumble from the crowd) Let me ask you this - oh, the crowd turns. 'Does he mean it? Maybe he does! Oh my God, we're all wrong!' Angelina Jolie on the program last night. Two hour interview. I say this to you now and I ask you to reaffirm it: I consider her the Bono of hotness.
AC: (laughter) Yeah, I think you're right. She wanted me to give you this. I showed it to you back, but you didn't take it.
JS: The picture of her. And it's signed by...she even initialed it AJ, as though someone else put that on there.
(close on photo; it says "JON - I'D RATHER TALK TO YOU ANY DAY! AJ")
AC: Yeah, she wouldn't actually sign it for you.
JS: She wouldn't sign it, she would just...
AC: I signed it myself. You can...
JS: You act like I don't have these already as wallpaper.
AC: (laughs; he does a lot of that)
JS: (shifts) Is it an exciting time for you? It's been an amazing year. Is Katrina --it seems to be the defining moment of your career. Do you feel that way as well?
AC: You know, I don't. I feel like I've been doing the same thing for fifteen years. You know, I shoot a lot of my stories on a little home video camera, that's how I started. I still do that. I guess more people are noticing it and watching it and stuff, but for me it seems very much the same.
JS: Does the attention change the way you report? Do you feel the effect of...
AC: Yeah, it's weird. I mean, it's a little harder to be - it cuts both ways. I mean, it's a little harder to be an observer and sort of blend in to any situation because people kind of recognize you when you arrive. And sometimes that means you get a big interview, like Angelina Jolie calls you up, or.... I mean, not me personally calls me, but calls, you know, my show up. Or...
JS: No, no, no don't back it away. Angelina Jolie called you up.
AC: (laughter) If only she called me. But sometimes it also means...
JS: What did she say when she called?
AC: (laughter)
JS: No, go ahead, go with the flip side.
AC: But yeah, sometimes it means that people have an idea about you before you get there and it changes - you know, you're not an observer, you can't just kind of hang out. People kind of involve you in on their conversation, which is weird.
JS: Does it make you question your instincts now? Do you think to yourself, they expect me to do this, and so I won't do it, I will temper that?
AC: Oh absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean you don't wanna...I mean any level of expectation I think is a problem. I would prefer just to be a blank slate to people. So...um, you know, that's what I try. I mean...yeah.
JS: I wasn't expecting an honest answer so I don't really know how to respond to this.
AC: (laughter)
JS: Have you been welcomed into the community of reporters and journalists? Is there a brunch, let's say, where you go?
AC: (somewhat sarcastic) It's a big community, yeah, it's a warm welcoming community.
JS: They seem like...do you know them?
AC: Are you kidding?
JS: They're terrible, right?
AC: Do you work...have you worked in TV long, Jon?
JS: I've been in TV, but we're in like a little bit of an insular bubble. But anytime we've gotten close to sort of the mainstream journalist community, it kind of has creeped us out a little bit.
AC: Well yeah, understandably.
JS: It's a little freaky.
AC: It is a little strange. Yeah I mean, I don't really hang out with other reporters and stuff. Nor do they hang out with me, so I'm not sure whose fault it is.
JS: It would be weird if they did but you weren't hanging out with them. They were just sort of following you around.
AC: (laughter)
JS: At CNN is there weirdness? You've shot up through the ranks there. Like, when you throw to Paula Zahn do you ever hear under her breath be like, ["BEEP?"] Like, is there anything like - is there any of that? Is there weirdness there?
AC: No, I mean actually people are really - CNN is a nice place to work. There's a real sense of mission and a sense of, you know, people being interested in the news.
JS: When's it gonna show on air?
AC: CNN?
JS: Yeah. That sense of mission.
AC: How do you mean?
JS: Because, I watch CNN a lot.
(Mixed crowd reaction: cheers/boos)
AC: They're still with you.
JS: They don't know what to think right now. They're like, I love Anderson but its Jon's show. The network seems to not know what - do they wanna be...
AC: Are you talking about MSNBC or CNN?
JS: CNN, MSNBC too. It's this sense of like, let's copy Fox in terms of their like kind of nice graphics and loud swoosh noises, and also car chases.
AC: He says, standing in front of nice graphics and loud swoosh noises.
JS: Exactly, well, when you're a parody you go where the money is.

(cheers)

The important thing is - like, the kind of reporting that you did on Katrina, it was so successful. And then it seems like the tenacity of the news divisions - their memory is very short. Like, they're literally like, the big story is Duke Cunningham and corruption, for a day, and then they're like...yeah that's over.
AC: Well look, I do think it's a problem that TV moves on very quickly. I mean, I would say...
JS: That's what I was saying. Because the mission makes it seem like there's a tenacity and a relentlessness when I don't see that reflected.
AC: I would argue that, frankly, we have a bureau in New Orleans, I go down to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast at least twice a month, you know. And I made a promise not to give up on that story and I do feel like a lot of people have moved on from that story. You go down to New Orleans and they all feel that people, the media has just moved on. They're really upset about it. I go down there repeatedly...
JS: Yeah, even on a story of that magnitude. You know, a woman from one of those news stations in New Orleans felt that way. She felt like, look, we're not, we don't have Katrina...
AC: Fatigue.
JS: Fatigue.
AC: Yeah, that phrase, I would never...that's an insulting phrase to the people who live there.
JS: I'm sure.
AC: Look, CNN has opened up a bureau down there. So has NBC. I'm going down on Friday. I go down literally probably twice a week, maybe every three weeks.
JS: Are you saving news? Are you gonna save it?
AC: Am I gonna save it?
JS: Are you gonna save it?
AC: I don't know, I wouldn't, I don't, you know...
JS: Please? Would you save it? I would like that very much.
AC: I do think it's hard, though, to, I mean. The mission thing often becomes an anchor wearing their politics on their sleeve, which frankly I don't believe in.
JS: I'm not talking political. I'm talking more like an emotional, of right or wrong, not necessarily left or right.
AC: Right, I agree.
JS: And it seems like they've abandoned that because they've been worked by the refs, by political parties.
AC: To me the job is find out what is true, find facts, and try to get people to actually answer questions, not just give responses. It seems like on TV we let an awful lot of people just get away with a response but not an actual answer to the question.
JS: It's as though you're a human being dealing with human beings.
AC: Right, an actual conversation.
JS: And that's what's been lost, in many respects.
AC: Yeah, I agree.
JS: Well I very much appreciate it, I enjoy it. Thank you for the picture, I'll put it up next to the one I have of you. "Dispatches from the Edge" is on the bookshelves now. Anderson Cooper!

— Transcript by Danny Shea