Anderson Cooper

On Wednesday evening, CNN barely covered the congressional hearing on the Benghazi attack from earlier that afternoon. Instead, the network provided wall-to-wall coverage of the Jodi Arias trial verdict and the Cleveland kidnappings.

From the hours of 5 p.m. until 11 p.m. ET, CNN gave a whopping 4 hours, 9 minutes of coverage to the two crime stories, but a measly eight minutes to Benghazi -- over 30 times more coverage. And three of CNN's prime-time shows didn't even mention Benghazi.

When MSNBC announced in March that Ed Schultz's weeknight program, “The Ed Show,” was being replaced by “All In,” which is hosted by 34-year-old Chris Hayes, the executives of the "Lean Forward" network hoped that the new hour-long program would hold onto the channel's liberal audience and even draw in younger viewers.

Instead, the ratings for Hayes' broadcasts in April were down 18 percent in total viewers from that month's numbers in 2012 for “Ed,” and it appears that “All In” is also dragging down the viewership for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” which was off by seven percent from its ratings during that period a year ago, and “The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell,” which also fell eight percent in a year-to-year comparison.

Hosting liberal filmmaker Spike Lee on his Tuesday show, CNN's Anderson Cooper supported Lee's prediction that more professional athletes will come out as gay like NBA player Jason Collins.

"The tide of history is moving forward," the openly-gay Cooper remarked in a not-so-subtle boost of the gay rights movement. On Monday, Cooper hailed Collins as "a true pioneer" and lauded his announcement as a "historic decision." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

One of the big talking points of liberal dogma is that hunters don't "need" to use AR-15 rifles for hunting. So what happens when a television correspondent praises the qualities of AR-15s for hunting wild hogs? He has to perform a bizarre sort of mea culpa by sidetracking the story a bit and asking a hog hunter if he really "needs" to use an AR-15.

Such was the case with CNN correspondent Victor Blackwell in his story about wild hog hunting on Anderson Cooper 360. First Blackwell reports on the damage caused by wild hogs to farms in Georgia as you can see in this video.

There sure are a lot of rumors flying around about Anderson Cooper.

After Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reported Tuesday that CNN was considering giving him a new show with - perish the thought! - vulgar comedienne Kathy Griffin, Andreeva also reported that NBC is thinking of replacing Today show anchor Matt Lauer with Cooper.

Rather than being punished for her lewd behavior on their network, CNN executives are rumored to be considering giving vulgar comedienne Kathy Griffin a regular show with Anderson Cooper.

Deadline reported moments ago:

Pop star Madonna showed up at the 24th annual Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Awards Saturday mockingly dressed as a Cub Scout.

At the end of her over twelve minute vulgarity laden presentation of the association's Vito Russo award to Anderson Cooper, she called the CNN host a "freedom fighter" and a "bad a-- motherf--ker" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

As of 9:47 ET this morning, according to the Associated Press, this is where the manhunt for Christopher Dorner stands: "Police spent all night searching the snowy mountains of Southern California but were unable to find the former Los Angeles police officer accused of carrying out a killing spree because he felt he was unfairly fired from his job.

We don't have to search very far for bias in the wire service's coverage of Dorner's "manifesto" (full uncensored version is here), which he apparently sent to CNN's Anderson Cooper. AP's unbylined report carrying excerpts from it cite Dorner's comments on the following politicians: former President George H. W. Bush (i.e., Bush 41), Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, Chris Christie. Notably absent is any mention of our current president. As seen after the jump, Dorner effusively praises President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle (paragraph breaks added by me; expletive cleaned up):

The folks at CNN sure have gotten smutty this year.

In the wake of Kathy Griffin kissing Anderson Cooper's crotch on New Year's Eve, and Piers Morgan having a truly raunchy discussion with Chelsea Handler earlier this week, Cooper on Friday reported a 1980s date as Larry King "trying to get Katie Couric in the sack" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

When Jeff Zucker became president of CNN earlier this month, some people in the mainstream media feared that this might be the end of “the last bastion of television journalism” since the former head of NBC Universal was expected to make many significant changes in the network personnel and schedule.

Those changes took off on Tuesday, when ABC's Chris Cuomo, who had served as the news anchor on “Good Morning America” from 2006 to 2009 and then moved on to the "20/20" prime-time program, was reported to “have a major role in a new CNN morning show and across the network, anchoring and reporting on major events.”

Anderson Cooper's lone guest to talk guns on Thursday night was the anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), echoing CNN's ridiculous disparity of pro-gun control guests and gun rights advocates on its newscasts.

Cooper pitched him a fairly easy interview, first asking, "your impressions of the President's proposals on gun control. Are you happy with them?" He later teed up Bloomberg to bash the NRA. "What do you think of the NRA, of how they have been fighting this?" he questioned.

As NewsBusters previously reported, vulgarian comedienne Kathy Griffin on CNN's New Year's Eve broadcast kissed Anderson Cooper's crotch.

On the CBS Late Show Wednesday, Griffin was quite pleased by her antics proudly telling host David Letterman that she sent an email message to Ryan Seacrest proclaiming, "I tried to blow Anderson Cooper" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

One would think the weirdest moment for Anderson Cooper during CNN's New Year's Eve broadcast was co-host Kathy Griffin kissing his crotch on national television.

Not so, for in a New Year's Day wrap-up with Griffin on Tuesday's Anderson Cooper 360, the host actual said the "weirdest moment" of the broadcast was when Korean singer Psy and MC Hammer surprisingly dropped by (video follows with transcript and commentary):

UPDATE: Cooper doesn't think this was the "weirdest moment" of the broadcast.

No matter what vulgar things Kathy Griffin does on CNN's live New Year's Eve broadcasts, the folks at the supposedly most trusted name in news continue to invite her back.

On Monday night's program, after first telling co-host Anderson Cooper "I'm going to tickle your sack," she shortly after midnight actually kissed his crotch (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Anderson Cooper had a bit of a scare Monday morning.

Appearing on a CNN Newsroom broadcast from Gaza airing around 7PM eastern time Sunday, Cooper was rocked by a huge explosion behind him (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Friday's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, as noted at HonestReporting.com, host Cooper devoted a one-minute segment to informing viewers that his show on Thursday had used footage of a Palestinian man in Gaza who was apparently faking injury for the benefit of cameras. Cooper began his retraction:

Despite CNN correspondent Dana Bash's claim that "neither side has a really clear mandate" from the election, CNN anchors went ahead on Tuesday and Wednesday and pushed Republicans to admit that President Obama has a mandate to raise taxes by virtue of his party's election gains.

On Tuesday night, Piers Morgan called Paul Ryan's denial of a mandate "ridiculous, given President Obama was re-elected, he's got the perfect mandate. The American people have spoken and they've said, we're re-electing you. He can raise taxation if he wants to, can't he?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

After Paul Ryan held that a voter turnout increase in "urban areas" hurt the Romney ticket, CNN's Anderson Cooper questioned if he was using racial overtones and hammered him with a "Keeping Them Honest" report claiming Ryan missed other reasons why Team Romney lost.

"Well, some critics jumped on those remarks, since 'historically urban' has often been used as a code word for African-American voters," said Cooper, who proceeded to "keep Ryan honest" by noting that urban areas weren't the only reason why Ryan and Romney lost. GOP strategist Alex Castellanos laughed at that assumption and called it "ridiculous." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Anderson Cooper asked a question on CBS's Late Show Friday that some might consider a bit indelicate.

"How does Dick Morris still have a job?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Would CNN's Anderson Cooper refer to far-left Democrats as "extremists"? On Wednesday night's Anderson Cooper 360, he asked how the GOP would court Latino votes with party "extremes" standing in the way.

"I mean how do you change it? You've got – because you have extremes in your party who certainly on the -- on the immigration issue, for instance, don't want to see some sort of a compromise," he told Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who admitted the GOP was moving in the "wrong direction" with Latinos. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

After a USA Today/Gallup poll showed women in swing states thought abortion the top election issue, CNN hyped the news and cast a wary eye toward "controversial" Republican positions as the possible catalysts. Five days later, however, Gallup reported that, nationally, abortion is near the bottom of importance among voters.

CNN hosts Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper led their October 18 shows with the swing state poll, and anchor Carol Costello touted it the next morning. Costello wondered if "controversial" statements by certain Republicans were to blame for women suddenly treating abortion with utmost importance.

During Tuesday's post-debate coverage on CNN, as the panel discussed moderator Candy Crowley giving cover to President Obama's attempt to defend his initial flawed response to the Benghazi terrorist attack, CNN correspondent John King blamed former Governor Mitt Romney for giving Crowley the opening to undermine the GOP candidate's criticism of Obama for taking so long to recognize that the attack was a premeditated act of terrorism.

Shortly before 11:30 p.m., CNN anchor Anderson Cooper had raised the subject as he defended Romney's reasoning and suggested that Obama was taking himself out of context to cover his own tracks. Cooper:

CNN's Anderson Cooper cited the liberal Tax Policy Center debunking Mitt Romney's tax plan on Monday, without noting that one of the authors admitted the plan could still work with different assumptions. He waited until the end of his report to admit that the studies in question were "making assumptions."

"[A] bipartisan panel of three authors for the Tax Policy Center examined the plan and concluded that there's really no way of making the numbers work, that is, unless the middle class pays more," Cooper reported on the night before Tuesday's presidential debate. That is misleading, since the study admitted reliance on "certain assumptions" and one of its authors said the plan could work. The TPC report was released in August.