Anderson Cooper is an idiot

CNN's top throat got beat up yesterday. No word on whether the blows to his face will cost him his job, but if they don't heal, Cooper certainly doesn't have any journalistic acumen to rely on. His beating brings journalism's main problem to the fore.

Cooper might or might not be a good anchor. I don't watch television news unless there is something live happening, because I can read. Thanks to the Internet, I've been watching Al-Jazeera's outstanding coverage of Egypt. Cooper's trip to Egypt isn't unusual. Rather, Brokaw and the boys were all at Tienanmen Square and we all remember Bernard Shaw's wonderful reporting from Baghdad when the first Gulf War started.

But all those men had extensive experience reporting. Not just reporting, but reporting from war zones. Cooper is a news reader. His performance in New Orleans during Katrina showed how bad he is at collecting information. And reporting a hurricane is fairly simple. Reporting a revolution from the ground, I would guess, is next to impossible. There would be nothing wrong with Cooper sitting above it all and bringing all the reports together. It's not something he can do from the middle of a riot.

The reason Al-Jazeera is killing CNN is they have people on the ground. CNN seems to have three reporting teams there. Al-Jazeera is everywhere. CNN has a talking head (a throat in print speak). AJ has a team of hardened reporters. And this begs the point. Cooper is making $7 million a year. He's grossly overpaid. What if CNN paid him $2 million a year and used that other $5 million to hire 25 more reporters. I'm guessing on the market value, but for six figures and a good benefits package, I'd take the job. We'd all be better off and poor Anderson wouldn't have to risk having his only asset smacked with a stick.