Anderson Cooper 360 Broadcasts Another Phenomenal Show Live From Haiti

Hi everyone. A new week begins and Haiti remains in hell. But our CNN friends continue to produce amazing coverage. I'm in awe of what I've been seeing. If you're not watching, my only question is: "Why not?" Tonight's broadcast brought us not only scenes of chaos and small moments of triumph, but a palpable growing frustration in our anchor. I haven't seen Anderson Cooper this worked up since Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. Maybe the night of the Sago Mining Tragedy as well, but that's it.

First though, the chaos. Anderson and crew witnessed things take a turn for the worse, with young men looting candles for profit. American businessman Tony Bennett attempted to keep them at bay by having police fire their guns into the air.



Then of course there is the talk of the Internet: Anderson saving an injured young Haitian boy. That video (airing earlier in the day) is below. For the broadcast tonight, that video and the one above were produced into a single exceptional piece, but I'm afraid I don't have that right now (update: here's the piece that ran during 360). As for Anderson saving the boy from the looters, wow. Just wow. I know there will be critics who claim he did it to showboat, or that the incident was even staged. Utter bullshit. The situation was clearly perilous, there was no one helping that boy, the camera wasn't even on him when he began the rescue, and he ditched his D.V. camera to do it (which he uses quite a bit on these field shoots). What he did was heroic. (Regarding the camera, I'm pretty sure he got it back because there was footage from it in the piece.)



Anderson's second piece was absolutely heartbreaking. A search-and-rescue team from the L.A. County Fire Department tried all day to find survivors in the rubble of a daycare center. The experience was no doubt a roller-coaster of emotions, as they intermittently found signs of life and then ultimately silence. I thought Anderson's voice-over during the last try was particularly poignant: "In the movies, this is when a small sound would be heard, a faint tap, a child's cry. But this is Haiti. And this is real. And, despite their best hopes, they hear no sound of life." CNN's translator Vlad Duthiers, who had been helping the rescuers since they didn't have one, then had to assist in breaking the news to the waiting family members. So sad.



Sanjay Gupta continues to be unbelievably awesome. Not only did he and his team stay behind to care for abandoned patients Friday night, he just saved the life of a 12-year-old girl named Kimberly who had shrapnel in her brain. Apparently, there are basically no neurosurgeons in Haiti right now, so the good doctor was tracked down. The following video contains Sanjay explaining the situation, as well as frustration from both he and Anderson.



The situation from Friday was also brought up. Earlier, Gary Tuchman actually interviewed the Chief Coordinator for BFAST to get to the bottom of it all.



We had some non Haiti-related news tonight as well. Jessica Yellin broke down the senate race for Ted Kennedy's seat. Honestly, even though I am very much invested in health care reform (and the Democrats losing this seat could be devastating to the bill), I just cannot get into this race. I'm not up on it at all. Right now political bickering just feels really...stupid.

Soledad O'Brien's report on the orphans was devastating (the video is from earlier). All those little babies.



Gary Tuchman's piece on the Bresma orphans at least offered us a bit of good news. Six of the children we saw Friday have been flown to their adoptive parents in the U.S. We're also told that Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell (the women who run the orphanage are from PA) came to Haiti to get more of the orphans, but was only able to obtain approval for about half the number they had hoped (28 granted approval to leave). Gary reminds us that Haiti now has many new orphans as well, showing us a very sick little boy. No one even knows his name. (For updates on the Bresma orphans, you can go to this blog.)



Anderson's conversation with Gary brought us what I thought was the most unintentionally funny moment of the past week. Our anchor is clearly upset and frustrated regarding the bureaucracies of aid and rescue organizations. After implying that it might have been better to prioritize getting aid into the country over flying orphans out (with the orphans obviously being aided where they were), Anderson noted that he would no doubt get angry emails over that. Adding, "I like orphans very much," which caused me to burst out laughing. It was just so bizarrely funny. Yes, Anderson saves a boy's life by day and by night he hates orphans and perhaps kicks puppies. Keep Annie away from that guy. Anyone who sends an angry email to Anderson over this...I don't know...hates freedom or something. Because I mean, really? The guy deserves a medal. They all do.

Keeping on our frustration theme, the interview with Dr. Irwin Redlener definitely had me asking "WTF?" Pediatric experts are WAITING to get into Haiti? What the hell is the hold up? Sanjay cannot save the entire country by himself (I know there are other MDs there now, but you know).

Aside from the confusion, Chris Lawrence's report was pretty cool. It's amazing that people are still being pulled out of the rubble alive. Again, CNN lends a hand, or in this case, a flatbed truck.



Anderson's (most excellent) rant about the Haitian government and his outrage over people dying needlessly due to aid bureaucracies are sure to get some media traction on Tuesday. It's a tough situation. On one hand you wonder, "My God, why can't people stop planning and just do it?!" The thing is though, every situation in Haiti seems so dire right now that without a coordinated effort, the most at risk might not be treated first. Someone on the ground sees orphans living outside with little food and thinks to themselves that they're seeing the worst. But maybe they're not.

I think our anchor was arguing both sides of this point: there needs to be a coordinated effort to prioritize AND people need to just start taking initiative (like the PA governor). But he's in hell right now, so that's understandable. The timeliness of the response is definitely bordering on ridiculous, and I hope CNN does look into the reason why. People are dying. As for Anderson, his outrage is genuine and righteous and will surely light a fire under some people, but it also must be exhausting and he's still going to be there at least through Friday. I hope he doesn't hit his breaking point before then.

Below is some more video you should see. Warning: disturbing and graphic:


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That last one was taken by a local on the day after the earthquake. As previously noted, I've been doing a lot of Haiti-related tweeting, so give me a follow if you're not already (@newsjunkie365). I've also set up a special Twitter List of journalists and a few others on-the-ground in Haiti. And as always, check out CNN Impact to learn how to help.

Possible Terror Plot Uncovered, More Tea Party Talk, Michelle Obama Takes On Health Care, Teen Traces His Roots, And Blitzer Is No Jeopardy Champion

Hi everybody. Anderson Cooper is once again coming at us from Los Angeles, and we begin with some nice scary terrorism news. An Afghan national living in the U.S. is being questioned by federal authorities regarding a possible terror plot AND he has admitted ties to Al Qaeda. Awesome. From Jeanne Meserve we learn that the guy's name is Najibullah Zazi, but she really doesn't know all that much else.

Peter Bergen then joins the conversation and Anderson says the following: "I have got to say, I am, and I think there's a lot of people who are very skeptical when they hear about these kind of raids or arrests. Oftentimes, kind of on further inspection, it turns out to be just a couple guys sitting around talking, who never had any access to any weaponry or anything." Bingo. I am definitely one of those skeptical "lot of people."

Time and time again we hear about some plot, everyone freaks out, and then later we find out it was just a couple of yahoos who thought they could actually take on a whole army base or something. So while I definitely think this is important for 360 to cover, and though Peter seems to think this one is the real deal, I'm still going to let this thing percolate before I expend any real blogging energy.

Transitioning from one kind of craziness to another kind of craziness. Yeah, we're still talking about the controversy over the protests over health care reform. The POTUS could really use not having to deal with this right now, but deal with it he must. Media blitz! In a Joe Johns piece we get a sum up of our prez talking to the media, broken down by network, which is sort of weird and amusing. On a related note, while we're talking about networks, did you guys see Rick Sanchez taking on the lies of Fox News? Booyah! Now that's what I'm talking about.

Back in the piece, we also learn that Joe Wilson speaks! What does he say? Meh. Nothing that interesting. He claims that if he could do it again he wouldn't. Whatever. For discussion of this, we're joined by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jennifer Palmieri of the Center For American Progress. Honestly, there is nothing of note here, though Tony does manage to bring up Prop 8. Quite the one trick pony, isn't he? Well, if you count abortion too, I guess he's two tricks.

On now to an Erica Hill piece on the Obama administration's latest move in the health care reform debate. Time to deploy the misses! They're hoping she'll be a force to be reckoned with. After all, she brings to the table a 75 percent approval rating among women, personal health care stories, and fantabulous arms! Unlike with Hillary Clinton, Michelle will mostly just be playing the First Lady role in this situation. I wish her good luck.

Next up, we have a Randi Kaye piece on the murder of Annie Le, which is followed by discussion. But I can't take this coverage anymore, so I switched to Jay Leno. Drew Barrymore was on. She drove a car around a track that had a cardboard Ed Begley Jr. It was weird. So...there's that.

Moving on to a cute Soledad O'Brien piece, in which we follow 14-year-old Donovan Rogers on his journey to trace his genealogy. Malaak Compton-Rock (wife of Chris) started this really cool program called Journey for Change, which took Donovan and 29 other Brooklyn kids to Africa, so they could learn to appreciate and take advantage of the opportunities they have. One part of the program is DNA testing.

The idea is to help the kids learn where they come from. When the big reveal finally comes, we learn that Donovan has roots in Sierra Leone. "I'm complete now. I know more about me and where my ancestors come from. And now that I know this, I'm going to take it further and discover more of that culture, because that's who I am," says Donovan. Cool kid. I hope Malaak is able to expand her program in the future. I really liked this piece, and judging by the look on Anderson's face when it was over, he did too. Yeah, I might have aw-ed. Sue me.

For the "shot" tonight, this just in to The Situation Room: Wolf Blitzer, like, really sucks at Jeopardy. That's right, the Wolfbot came face-to-face with one Mr. Alex Trebek and the result was humiliating, crushing defeat. The most winceable part is when he's informed that even though he's in the negative, it's celebrity Jeopardy, so they're going to make an exception and let him keep playing. Man, that had to burn his beard. So, Anderson and Erica Hill are sympathetic to their colleague's public embarrassment, right? Oh hells no! They're loving this.

To be fair, our anchor (who is a Jeopardy champion himself, thank you very much) somewhat has the Wolfbot's back, noting that it's really more about the buzzer than what you know. Uh huh. Right. And if anyone thought they were getting out of here without seeing a little of the Silver Fox's appearance, well, you don't know him that well. "Oh, you have tape. Excellent," says Anderson, as Erica intros. Yeah, because he didn't know that was coming.

Anyhoo! You can check out Anderson's big win here. If you're like me, you will be amused by the combination of overly intense seriousness mixed with that quirky dorkiness we all know and love. Also? "They told me I might be able to come back on this year," says Anderson. That would be really cool. But are there really that many celebs waiting in the wings that Anderson Cooper has to wait and see if he's been picked to come back on? I guess Alex Trebek really is our overlord.

Finally, goodbye to producer Jason Rovou, who is headed to the home of the suspendered-one. Good luck, Jason. I did not know you, but you rock a bee suit like nobody's business. On a related staffer note, don't forget Jack Gray's live-blog on Sunday! Fun will be had.