Photos of Anderson Cooper at the Museum of Television and Radio

Hi! As promised, our undercover agent 00F took this images and some video from Anderson's lecture at the Museum of TV and Radio for your viewing pleasure, I'm also trying to whip the agent to write a first hand account, including the small chat they had at the staircase... hmmm, let's see if 00F obliges...

• He is planning to go to Iraq during the summer
  
• Soon to Niger for 60 minutes

UPDATE:
Agent 00F comply with the request, so here it is:

Most memorable moments of the event.

by Agent 00F, Visiting New York Freak Correspondent

The lecture was really in a form of an interview with clips of his famous reports on a big screen. The start was a blunder – the host said something along the lines of that she never met him though worked on CNN in the past. And now she can see him in her bedroom a lot more often- Anderson was fast – oh, let’s not talk about it further with audience laughing. Host said she didn’t mean it the way it came out –but everybody was glad it did -)

Anderson talked briefly about his career and how thrilled his mom as to know he was going to go to wars. Later answering a question he said she’s happy for him now

He mentioned the dangers of conflict/war reporting. Admitted it is kind of addictive. He said there’s a line when you’re staying there too long and he knows colleagues who have been in war situation a few years and couldn’t adjust to normal life after that. Normal life seems to ordinary when you’re covering war and it’s easy to get lost.

He did talk about Afghanistan and that it’s frustrating for soldiers that that war is thought of as less dangerous then in Iraq. And that it was frustrating to plan the whole week there only to return to cover breaking news 48 hours later.

Anderson talked about Niger and that people don’t want to see those kind of stories- it’s a “turn-off TV”, but it’s still important to cover it and let the world know about people’s suffering. And that it’s very difficult for him to cover this kind of stories because he wants to be empathic and take in people’s stories but at the same time he needs to focus on getting the right level of sound and camera angles to capture the details and bring a viewer a compelling picture that reflects the atmosphere of what they’re seeing. It’s very hard to be split between being compassionate and thinking how to package the story

He was asked if CNN would let him go to Iraq –he said he was planning to go there few months ago but logistically something didn’t work out and he’s hoping to go in summer. Also he plans to go to Niger for 60 minutes.

He was asked what he thinks about the article talking about him being used as a symbol of emotional reporting (in a bad way). He disagrees with that, said that he’s less emotional then most other anchors and that it happened to him only once during Katrina. He tries to do balanced reporting, citing Niger as example of reporting style he has. He finds the kind of reporting when you hold crying babies and say how horrible it is too easy and sort of cheap and said some others are doing that. Having real human emotion and pushing fake ones on viewers are different things.

There was a question form the audience about difference of doing 60 Minutes and CNN. Anderson said it’s very different, he’s getting better at interviews and it’s like working out a different group of muscles.

Another question from the audience–sport stars want to be anchors, rock stars sport stars and so on. What would Anderson prefer –be a rock star or sport star- he said he would prefer to be a rock star, he knows nothing about sports it must be thrilling to perform on stage in front of thousands of people.

Ander q&a was over a few people went up to him to get autographs, he was very nice, polite and charming. He looks younger in person than on TV. I did hear it from other people and can confirm it myself -)