Anderson Cooper

Biography

Anderson Cooper anchors Anderson Cooper 360, an unconventional, wide-ranging news program airing on CNN/U.S. weekdays. Cooper, who joined CNN in December 2001, served as CNN`s weekend anchor before moving to prime time in March 2003 following the war in Iraq and then to a two-hour, late evening timeslot in November 2005 following Hurricane Katrina.

Since the launch of Anderson Cooper 360, Cooper has covered nearly all of the major news events around the world. Often reporting from the scene, he spent more than a month along the U.S. Gulf Coast covering the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and has returned more than 20 times to follow the reconstruction progress. Cooper has reported multiple times from Afghanistan and Iraq, including anchored coverage in both countries of the fifth and sixth anniversaries of the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraqi elections. Cooper also covered the bombings in London and the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in 2006, anchored much of CNN`s live coverage of the funeral of Pope John Paul II in the Vatican City in 2005 and traveled to Sri Lanka to cover the tsunami in 2004.

During most of 2007 and 2008, Cooper traveled around the world for Planet in Peril, a sweeping four-hour documentary in high definition about issues threatening the planet and its inhabitants and its natural resources.

Cooper also has played a pivotal role as part of the Best Political Team on Television for CNN`s America Votes 2008 coverage, reporting and anchoring coverage from both the Democratic and Republican national conventions. In 2007, Cooper moderated the groundbreaking CNN/YouTube debates for Democratic presidential candidates from The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., and for Republican presidential candidates in St. Petersburg, Fla., and, in 2008, moderated a Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

In addition to reporting for CNN, Cooper also provides reports for CBS`s 60 Minutes. Dispatches from the Edge, Cooper`s memoirs about covering the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and other news events, recently topped the New York Times Bestsellers List and other bestseller charts.

Before joining CNN, Cooper was an ABC News correspondent and host of the network`s reality program, The Mole. Cooper anchored ABC`s live, interactive news and interview program, World News Now, as well as providing reports for World News Tonight, 20/20 and 20/20 Downtown. Previously, he was a New York-based correspondent for ABC News, reporting primarily for World News Saturday/Sunday.

Cooper joined ABC from Channel One News, where he served as chief international correspondent. During that time, he reported and produced stories from Bosnia, Iran, Israel, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa and Vietnam. He also reported national stories that were broadcast over the Channel One News school television network and seen in more than 12,000 classrooms nationwide.

Cooper and Anderson Cooper 360 have won several awards, most recently three Emmy awards in 2006 for reports about famine in Niger, Charity Hospital in New Orleans and black market infertility. Cooper has also earned a National Headliners Award for his tsunami coverage, an Emmy Award for his contribution to ABC`s coverage of Princess Diana`s funeral; a Silver Plaque from the Chicago International Film Festival for his report from Sarajevo on the Bosnian civil war; a Bronze Telly for his coverage of famine in Somalia; a Bronze Award from the National Educational Film and Video Festival for a report on political Islam; and a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Journalism for his 20/20 Downtown report on high school athlete Corey Johnson.

Cooper graduated from Yale in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. He also studied Vietnamese at the University of Hanoi. Cooper is based in New York City.

Titles

Anderson Cooper`s Keynote

Anderson Cooper gives an impressionistic look back at his life in journalism so far, and he tells it with the same candor and feeling that resonates so powerfully with audiences, critics and subjects. He shares amazing stories of the people he met, the things he saw and the lessons he relearned in the midst of devastation. His television viewers will recognize in his talk the same distinctive intellect, empathy, curiosity, eloquence and accountability he brings to his broadcasts. Cooper crisscrosses through time as these haunting experiences dislodge old memories he has long tried to contain. Reporting from Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami surrounded by sadness and despair, he tells of survivors looking for missing loved ones and whole villages decimated to covering the devastation - still being felt - of Hurricane Katrina. Cooper is reminded of his own earlier losses and the formative impact they have had on him: the death of his father, writer Wyatt Cooper, when he was only ten and the suicide of his brother, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, in front of their mother while he was in college. Throughout his talk, he reflects on the family history he has kept at a distance for years, gradually remembering and reconfiguring pieces of his past into something recognizable.

Anderson gives the audience a sense of what it means to be a journalist -- the fear, the adrenaline, the camaraderie, the pragmatism, the desensitization, the self-preservation -- and how challenging it is to do that job without losing essential parts of oneself. He also shares telling insights into the anatomy of a news story, a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what makes it to air and what doesn`t. Cooper demonstrates why he has become one of the most relevant and incisive voices in the news business.