CNN anchor Anderson Cooper recently raised eyebrows by his comments on former CNN CEO Chris Licht. Cooper said he didn’t have confidence that he understood Licht’s positions on the network. Former CNN host Keith Olbermann argues that Cooper doesn’t understand his position, either.
During Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the former cable news host took Cooper to task for his latest profile in The New York Times, alleging the longtime anchor has a fundamental misunderstanding of what his position is at CNN.
“The world’s longest-running unsuccessful marketing experiment is still making hay off the death of his mother and his brother. Book three on this topic is coming soon and got him another profile in The New York Times,” said Olbermann. “He now has more profiles in The New York Times than he has viewers, but if that’s the way you want to live your life, have fun. The Times fluff piece didn’t question him once about denigrating his own audience, saying on air they were quote ‘Staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with’. But it did give him the chance to really show how little he understands what he does for a living.”
Olbermann then read a quote from Cooper arguing that he is not an opinion host on CNN and that he values his role as a journalist playing things strictly down the middle.
“Anderson Cooper thinks he’s not an opinion host?” questioned Olbermann. “And he’s trying to be straight down the middle? And no, (The New York Times) did not ask him how that would jive with attacking his own audience and ending his career the way he did.”
