Doctors are, you know, actually saving peoples’ lives and I bet Anderson Cooper is branded as some kind of hero for this because it was caught on camera.
If you want actual journalism, follow Zoriah once he makes it into Haiti.
Okay so this comment bothers me quite a bit.
I don’t believe anyone has been claiming that doctors have not been saving people’s lives or are regarded as anything less than heroes. Maybe it hasn’t been said ad nauseum, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone unnoticed.
The reason people are flooding your dashboard and calling Anderson Cooper a hero is because he went out of his way to save a single life. Cooper easily could’ve stood by as most reporters should and do, but instead he risked his own life to jump into the middle of an event, pull a living body out from a dangerous situation, and take care of him. This, oddly enough, is pretty similar to what doctors, paramedics, and the like do every day in every country.
They are all heroes.
Even more reason for this Cooper story to flood your eyes and ears today? Because he’s a pretty powerful entity. That is to say that he is a celebrity at some level. Of course you’re going to hear about him when he commits a good deed. If you expected anything less, then you’re simply fooling yourself.
What’s worse is that you took a jab at someone doing a heroic act, no matter what context you decided to surround it with, and then took a moment to shamelessly plug one of your friends (or whatever relationship you have with them). You’ve just done your friend a disservice by insulting one journalist’s intentions. If Cooper is only in Haiti to earn some sort of publicity, then why wouldn’t we assume that your friend is there to do the same?
A hero is a hero. Small deeds weigh as much as larger deeds when you take a look at what it means to be a hero.
No. I am not saying what Anderson Cooper did wasn’t a heroic deed. I am ripping on CNN as a corporation because this is their top “Latest Haiti News” story when there are rescuers still pulling people alive out of the rubble. They are whoring for clicks and ad revenue. A better story would have been Sanjay Gupta staying alone in an unsecured hospital overnight to care for patients when the rest of the staff left due to “security issues.” Anderson Cooper saw a kid get hit by a brick, carried him 20 yards, and left him to some strangers. But you know what? It was caught on camera and makes for good TV.
And yeah, I plugged a journalist I work for who will be in Haiti this week. But he was in Haiti three weeks ago before this happened and all the corporate news agencies couldn’t give a fuck about where Haiti even was on the map. He is going in on his own dime and will sell his photos only after they are taken if an editor decides they are worth being published. He doesn’t have the luxury of being flown in on private jets and having still and video camera crews and security following his every move when he decides to pick some poor kid up off the streets.
He’s just a guy with a camera telling the stories of people who otherwise wouldn’t have a voice.
