Anderson Cooper's Dispatches From The Edge

Posted on May 30, 2006

He's a journalist. He's a cover boy. He's an author. There is apparently no end in sight to the multiple talents of CNN's silver haired anchor Anderson Cooper who became a household name after his gripping coverage of Hurricane Katrina. USA Today's Jocelyn McClurg discusses Cooper's new book, Dispatches From the Edge, which he wrote himself.

Anderson Cooper has a savvy enough sense of irony to know that terrible tragedies sometimes can be very good for journalistic careers. The year 2005, framed by the horrors of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, made Cooper a media superstar. And got him a $1 million book deal.
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The most powerful parts of Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival deal with these two deaths and their impact on the future CNN anchorman. Passages about his father's premature death at 50 and the guilt Anderson experienced over his brother's suicide pack a visceral punch, even if Cooper sometimes seems at a loss to understand what he's feeling — or not feeling. "For years I tried to swaddle the pain, encase the feelings," he writes. "All I managed to do was deaden myself to feelings, detach myself from life. That only works for so long." Cooper compares himself to a shark that has to keep moving. "I sometimes believe it's motion that keeps me alive as well."

Cooper has a great storytelling style. We saw him on Conan O'Brian promoting his book and Conan asked about his oddest experience in New Orleans during the hurricane. Cooper said one odd thing was seeing action star Steven Seagal dressed in a full SWAT uniform, patrolling Jefferson Parish with a real SWAT Team. Seagal declined to be interviewed on camera telling Cooper that he was just "doing his thing." Would that be arresting looters? Getting movie ideas? Later, Seagal steepled his hands in the Buddhist "wai," bowed and drove away with the police. Talk about the blurring between film and reality...