Anderson Cooper Takes the Field as a 'Minutes' Man

New York Daily News
By Marisa Gutherie, Staff Writer

Anderson Cooper, the face of CNN, makes his debut on CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday, the first of multiple reports Anderson is scheduled to do for the famed newsmagazine.

Cooper fronted stories for the now-defunct "60 Minutes II," but the original show is still viewed as the pinnacle of TV journalism and could serve as a tryout of sorts.

"He brings a lot to the table," said "60 Minutes" executive producer Jeff Fager. "We're always looking for the next full-time correspondent who will eventually join us down that road. He's going to show what he can do in the next couple of years. We'll see how it goes. I'm optimistic."

Cooper will interview Abu Ghraib whistleblower Sgt. Joe Darby, who turned over the infamous photos of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners there. Darby and his wife have not been able to return to their home and are still in hiding.

"He doesn't want anyone to know where he lives," said Cooper. "He and his wife are still kind of looking over their shoulders. The piece is about how that decision (to turn in the pictures) has completely changed his life, and changed it in many ways for the worse."

Cooper worked on the story with associate producer Casey Morgan and longtime "60 Minutes" producer Bob Anderson, who generated the story, said Fager.

"Anderson was seriously involved in the story," he said. "It's a collaboration between the producer and correspondent. We really believe in that process. Anderson is a serious reporter who really knows how to collaborate well. It's part of why he fits in so well here."

Cooper's "60 Minutes" stories will air on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" after they appear on CBS. CNN executives granted Cooper permission to appear on "60 Minutes" only if it didn't interfere with his day job, which means Cooper works on the pieces during weekends and vacations, he said.

"I don't really take vacation anyway, so it hasn't been too bad," he said.

But he views his work at "60 Minutes" as an "incredible opportunity to learn," he said. "The bar is pretty high over at '60 Minutes.'"

From Another One of My Favorite Journalists...

NBC's Engel Defends Iraq Correspondents

For those of you not familiar with Richard Engel, he is the bureau chief of NBC Beirut, but his real acclaim is spending more time on the ground than any other reporter in Baghdad. Check back for more to come on this, another amazing reporter and his stories. Thanks to TVNewser for the blurb:)

On Sunday's Reliable Sources, NBC News Middle East bureau chief Richard Engel said his network's decision to call Iraq a "civil war" was "very much driven by what the reports are coming from the ground." Later in the show, Howard Kurtz asked:

KURTZ: Richard Engel, top administration officials, as you well know, have repeatedly criticized correspondents like you for painting an unnecessarily negative picture of what's going on in Iraq, staying in the Green Zone, and all of that. Now that this -- even the private doubts and reservations of the White House and the Pentagon are coming out, do you feel vindicated? ENGEL: No. It's been very frustrating all along to be at the receiving end of that criticism with acquisitions like we just spend all of our time in the Green Zone. For the record, neither your reporters, Arwa Damon right now in Baghdad, or almost any of the reporters who cover Iraq do so from the Green Zone, but go out every day either with the U.S. military or driving around the city of Baghdad. And to say that we somehow have been just lazy and picking up bad reports to try to make the American mission in Iraq somehow seem like a failure is inaccurate. It's also, in some degree, dangerous. I mean, I know reporters, colleagues of mine who have received so much criticism over the last three and a half, four years, that they felt they've had something to prove. And so they put themselves in extraordinarily dangerous situations. And I know one reporter who was kidnapped as a result of it. So it's not a sense of vindication, but it is good that people are finally starting to finally see that the situation in Iraq is tremendously difficult, and it is not just reporters who are looking for bad -- bad news stories.