(source)
You might have interpreted this Anderson Cooper shot above as a cable news anchor recoiling from Hurricane Sandy’s blustery winds – but underneath the live-remote reporting lay the sting of cancellation: Cooper’s fledgling syndie chat show had been axed by Warner Bros.
Anderson Live, in its second and now-final season, has struggled to find ratings and has had a series of producer departures and other bad-press moments. The talk show stretched the CNN AC360 host pretty thin, although he always maintained his enthusiam for it. News broke yesterday of the cancellation, and reaction followed fast on Twitter:
Cooper has been maligned - on Twitter and elsewhere - for being an entitled Vanderbilt who sashays on set with no real journalistic core. I disagree. I've gotten into spats on Twitter myself defending him, and will continue to do so, because his voice is critical as part of our national discourse. These days, with truth in short supply, we need his ilk "keeping them honest." His dogged, unrelenting work during Hurricane Katrina won him a Peabody Award and landed him his primetime gig he still has today on CNN.
Cooper came out in July in a now-famous e-mail to blogger Andrew Sullivan; many had high hopes for his foray into lighter TV fare. Perez Hilton probably put it best: “T.V. would be a sad, sad place without our favorite Silver Fox!”
Not to worry, AC360 will continue on CNN at the 8 and 10 p.m. hours.
