Reflections of Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper
“If he could keep moving, and keep exploring, he felt he could stay one step ahead of his past…”
Anderson Cooper 360 | At the scene of one of five fires burning in Los Angeles.
If you’ve been a friend of mine for any amount of time, I have 100% brought up Anderson Cooper in a conversation. As the phrase goes, “ 'If you're drawn to a city, it's because your story has already been written there,” I believe this applies to people as well. For me, this was Anderson Cooper. Originally, I had this piece titled, “Anderson Cooper is my Alix Earle,” to be trendy, but I quite enjoy tuning into Hot Mess on a weekly basis so it didn’t feel appropriate. Though, I’d love to see Anderson Cooper on Therapuss with Jake Shane.
I’ve been watching Cooper on air since I was 9, thanks to growing up watching daytime television. Without it being said, New Year’s Eve is essentially my Super Bowl.
Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival was one of the first books I checked out with my new library card. I also signed up for this card exactly a day before the Los Angeles wildfires ignited. The book sat on my dresser for a couple of days before I could build the courage to open it. The cover of the book is ⅔ a profile of Cooper and ⅓ fire background. Very 2006 graphic design, I can’t blame them, but the timing felt odd to start this earlier.
However, the timing of this read was serendipitous, as I was able to reflect on his narratives of working in journalism in the 90s and 2000s to the current state of the world. As I’m writing this, it’s the week where TikTok got banned, Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term, a ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas, Elon Musk put his hands in the air like he just don’t care (I'm scared),
wait… then TikTok got unbanned, etc… and that’s what you missed on Glee.
From unpacking the rapid changes in cities driven by war to interviewing leaders in search of answers and accountability after natural disasters, it was interesting to reflect on his stories to what we are witnessing in real-time and what it means to be a modern-day journalist.
CNN | Cooper created a faux press pass while working for Channel 1, used during his self-produced reports and filmed on a Hi8 camcorder.
Not only do we get insight into his notes and transcripts from his time reporting in Sri Lanka, Iraq, Niger, to Louisiana, we learn more about the personal pain in his family and the moments that sparked him to begin his career journey.
“If he could keep moving, and keep exploring, he felt he could stay one step ahead of his past… As a reporter, the frenetic pace of filing dispatches from war-torn countries, and the danger that came with it, helped him avoid having to look too closely at the pain and loss that was right in front of him.”
- Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival, 2006
In every disaster, there is someone, some investor, looking for a way to make money while it’s cheap. Cooper describes these unethical business practices as he reported on real estate moguls buying New Orleans property while every square foot of land was underwater. With no paperwork to show homeowners' mortgages because of the flood damage, the brokers simply take a purchase agreement and see what happens. We’ve seen this happen throughout history. In 2023 - median rent in Lahaina, Hawaii surged 44% the year following their wildfire catastrophe. Today, Zillow listings for rental properties in the Los Angeles area spiked between 15 to 64% since last week (for more information, read Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez's proposal to enact a citywide eviction moratorium and rent freeze in response to the fires).
“In normal times you can’t always say what’s right and what’s wrong. The truth is not always clear. Here, however, all the doubt is stripped away. This isn’t about republics and democrats, theories and politics. Relief is either here or it’s not. Corpses don’t lie.”
- Anderson Cooper, p. 141
Ms. Connie is a former traveling preacher who is legally blind, widowed, and lives with her service dog, Abu. As National Guard troops begin boarding folks for evacuation, Cooper intervenes to talk to the police officers to help Ms. Connie’s dog onto the helicopter with her. Ms. Connie assumed Abu would not be allowed to board with her, but Cooper tells the officers that this policy had recently changed. “I’m not sure where I will end up, but God knows where I’ll end up,” Ms. Connie said. The officer returns and tells Ms. Connie that Abu can be brought with her. She believes this miracle is a sign from God as she says, “I believe the Lord gives you guidance and will give you guidance, if you listen.” Cooper asks, “God is still watching over New Orleans?” “Absolutely, absolutely,” she said.
“I’m not shocked anymore by the bodies, the blunders. You can’t stay stunned forever. The anger goes away, but it settles somewhere behind your heart; it deepens into resolve, I feel connected to what’s around me, no longer just observing. I feel I am living in it, breathing it.”
- Anderson Cooper, p. 168
After reporting on Hurricane Katrina and as Hurricane Rita picks up in Texas, the coverage of these stories drops as the days go by. As a journalist, they lead each morning with two questions:
What can we do that’s new?
What haven’t we seen?
“We haven’t seen enough,” Cooper replies.
Besides getting slizzard with Andy Cohen every year, I have a lot of respect for how Cooper has brought in empathy, shining light on the ethics of being a journalist, and how he continues his conversations after the end of a broadcast. The day after completing this book, I participated in a research study covering how public relations and strategic communication practitioners who work to promote social change use generative AI tools. Specifically, how they are considering professional ethics as they use generative AI to develop best practices across the communication workforce. Yes, AI can be used to streamline tasks, but it can never take the place of a human-to-human conversation and tell the story of an individual in their full honor and respect.
How you could use generative AI to conduct a profile piece:
Insert the purpose for the written piece, name of the interviewee, background of the topic, intended audience, and word count
Instructing AI to suggest questions to ask the interviewee
Ask AI to create a title and subtitle for the piece
Factors generative AI would lack in doing this task:
Taking hours to transcribe interview audio, acknowledging shifts in tone and body language
Creating follow-up questions in the moment, looping a new stream of information
Building a lasting relationship with the parties at hand to conduct follow-ups on their stories
The people and events in his career continue to carry on with him. Not only does it feel like a duty to honor them, but they massively influence the next stages of what he does in his career and life. From this book, I reflected on my own experiences of what it means to learn how to survive on your own, process tragedy, and how those, like Cooper, relay this to the world and in his work.
“There’s so much laughter, even in the midst of all the loss. It’s the way it should be – no distance between the living and the dead. Their stories are remembered, their spirits embraced.”
- Anderson Cooper, p. 207
Quotes from my notes page:
“For a moment, I am reminded of searching my brother’s apartment after his death. I was looking for clues that might explain what happened. I was hoping to reconstruct events, build a timeline. In the end it wasn’t possible.” - Cooper, p. 199
“Here, in New Orleans, the compartmentalization I’ve always maintained has fallen apart, been worn down by the weight of emotion, the power of memory. For so long I tried to separate myself from the past. I tried to move on, forget what I’d lost, but the truth is, none of it’s ever gone away. The past is all around, and in New Orleans I can’t pretend it’s not.” - Cooper, p. 169
Sarajevo, 1993 - reporting the Bosnian War. “During the 1984 Olympics, the location of the hotel was ideal; it was in the heart of the city, near the river, with views of the mountains. During the war, however, the location couldn’t have been worse. The ski slopes that once hosted competitions from around the world were now home to snipers. The boxy Holiday Inn was a top-heavy target. It faced the front line, and at night, tracer fire whipped past the windows like shooting stars.” - Cooper, p. 54
“This is my second trip to Iraq for CNN, and I’m not sure what I’ve really seen. “Everyone has a different war,” a soldier once said to me. “We all see our own little slice; no one ever sees it the same.” Roger that.” - Cooper, p. 51
“I couldn’t feel anything at all. I wanted to be someplace where emotions are palpable, where the pain outside matched the pain I was feeling inside. I needed balance, equilibrium, or as close to it as I could get. I also wanted to survive, and I thought I could learn from others who had. War seemed like my only option.” - Cooper, p. 46