Soledad O'Brien was in the anchor chair tonight, filling in for Anderson Cooper. We have lots of extras for you tonight, but first the 360 re-cap.
The first story of the night was on Haiti's Orphans. Soledad talked about her trip to an orphanage in Haiti and a flight out of Port-au-Prince with more than 100 orphans on board.
Randi Kaye was in with the first 360 Bulletin* 9/11 trial may not be held in NYC
* Congressman Steve Buyer of Indiana announced his retirement
* Texting while driving does not reduce traffic accidents according to a new study
* Texting while driving does not reduce traffic accidents according to a new study
* Bill & Melinda Gates announced a record donation that could save 9 million lives
Next up was a segment by Anderson from the CNN Heroes Saving Haiti 360 Special, about Boby Duval, a 2007 CNN Hero.
Tonight's Crime & Punishment segment was on the guilty verdict handed down today to Scott Roeder for murdering abortion Dr. Geroge Tiller. Deliberations lasted only 37 minutes and Roeder was sentenced to life in prison, but with the possibility of parole. Roeder confessed to the killing and offered chilling testimony of the planned execution on the witness stand yesterday. Leroy Carhart, a practitioner of late-term abortion and a friend of Dr. Tiller's talked to Soledad about Dr. Tiller's murder and the verdict today.
The 360 Raw Politics segment tonight was about President Obama and his rare face-off with members of the GOP at a GOP retreat in Baltimore today. Ed Rollins sat down with Soledad to discuss the event. Three things caught my attention -- Ed felt POTUS came in and dominated the Republican show, he hopes everyone at the retreat recognized that President Obama is a formidable candidate, and he felt the invitation to POTUS to attend the event should not have been made. Extended cuts of the meeting today were to be aired at the top of the hour - Raw Politics - A Special 360 Hour.
Tom Foreman was at the "stimulus desk" in Atlanta. Tonight's segment looked at two projects -- money going to Antarctica for research projects and a program in DC helping young people get ready for jobs. I hit the Fast Forward button at this point, sorry.
Next Randi Kaye was in with a special report on a stimulus project in Florida called "Saving Turtles." De ja vue any one?
Looks like we have a new series to look forward to next week.
Randi Kaye was back with the second 360 Bulletin* President Obama today called on congress to approve a bill that would provide $33 billion in tax breaks for small businesses that hire new workers and give pay raises
* The economy grew faster that expected, 5.7%, in the last quarter - the fastest pace in 6 years
* In London, former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, defended his position to support the US led war in Iraq
* In NC, John Edward's mistress wants a very "private and personal" video tape back from a former Edward's aide
Instead of airing the Anderson Cooper 360 Special - CNN Heroes Saving Haiti as originally planned, there was a Special Raw Politics Edition of 360 tonight. The special will air over the weekend - Saturday & Sunday night at 8ET and we will cover it for you. 
Here are a couple of videos I found on the 360 Blog today -- a preview of tomorrow's special.
Lots of extras tonight:
Adam Goldberg was on The Late Show with Craig Ferguson last week and talk turned to The Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper's Abs! Given the past 2+ weeks discussion of Mr. Cooper and the men of CNN reporting from Haiti in T-shirts, I thought you might enjoy this!
Jon Stewart had this to say about CNN's BPTOT on Thlast night.
And David Gergen was on The Colbert Report last night.
Paul Begala was on The Colbert Report Wednesday night. If you missed it, click here for the link to the All Things CNN post.
That's it for me tonight. I hope you all have a great weekend! -- Wonz
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All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.
All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.
6 comments:
I didn't see 360 last nite, so thanks for the recap Wonz. I wasn't really surprised that Anderson wasn't on though. Just the vibe I got from the show thursday nite.
Great post, thanks for catching me up on things. I didn't watch last night either. After the last few weeks it will be hard to go back to studio Anderson, but I'm looking forward to the new series on Haiti's orphans.
I was very disappointed CNN chose to rerun CB's special on the Republicans instead of the new AC Haiti special. I'll be watching the ratings on Monday to see if it tanked.
Love the extras, great catches.
Loved the Daily Show clip! It was great.
:)
Let me start by saying I think Soledad did a good job sitting in for Anderson last night. Now I'm going to rant..... My opinions only.... but
I was extremely disappointed that Anderson was not anchoring live from Haiti last night. How many times did we hear Mr. Cooper say "we will be here all week" -- apparently a week means 4 days? If you count the miniscule amount of Anderson & lack of Haiti stories on Wednesday night -- the a week is possibly even 3 nights. (But I have a feeling the decision to air all the politics and no Haiti stories on Wednesday night was not Anderson's so I will give him a pass on that.) While I can understand the need for a travel day, since Thursday was to be the last night of a 2+ week stay, I think there should have been more of a wrap up. If not another Reporter's Notebook -- maybe more of a correspondent's chat of their week's experiences. The show just seemed to end very quickly and rather oddly on Thursday night.
Even more of a disspointment was the wisdom of whomever at CNN made the decision not to air the Haiti Heroes special in the second hout of 360. First we are led to believe 360 would be live from Haiti (advertised on the 360 Website - that Sanjay and Anderson would be reporting live from Haiti) and then that the special would air at 11pmET -- also up on the 360 Website well into the first hour anyway. I had CNN on most of the day yesterday -- they aired the Pres. Obama/GOP meeting in it's entirity, dissected it to death and devoted the whole hour of Campbell Brown's show (prime time) to the topic. Was it really necesary to bump the Haiti Heroes special and air it again? I thought that was the purpose of the CNN Website -- so people could find out the news they are intersted in but may have missed.
Rant done..... I just want to say that I really enjoyed Anderson, Sanjay, Gary, Ivan & Karl's reporting these past 2 1/2 weeks. I thought their reporting was excellent and realize that it was not an easy story to cover from the techinical to emotional aspects, and I truly appreciate the efforts of the entire 360 team.
I, also, enjoyed the way 360 mixed it up a little last night - with regard to sitting, standing, stools, big desk, little desk, camera angels -- it was refreshing to watch. And THANK YOU for the absence of panels. I like the one person weighing in on a subject much better than panel after panel. After Wednesday night's giant panel where too many people said too little, I've had enough panels to last the rest of the year!
I'm looking forward to Anderson's return to anchoring Monday night -- but must say I prefer "field Anderson" to "studio Anderson" -- let's hope 360 doesn't leave the Haiti story any time soon!
Hello Wonz and friends!
Yesterday I liked of anchoring of Soledad in 360. She was safe and maybe in her best day in AC360. It seemed that the days in Haiti have done well for her!
The new format with Soledad standing, sitting, in front of Randi Kaye, in the small desk and big desk was very good, dynamic and it was well done.
But my big question is: CNN embraced the cause of Haiti in the last (17 or 18) days and next week, who will be there? About someone in Haiti? No more interest?
But whatever the case, the work of AC and CNN team was exceptional! They deserve a rest!
Let's see what awaits us on Monday. I think Mr Cooper will have much work ahead to get hold the attention of viewers doing AC360 in the studio.
See you friends...
No one can beat Jon Stewart when it comes to political satire. I saw his show in its entirety and you have to hear Chris Matthews say," I almost forgot he was black," in reference to our President, to get how really "stupid," some of the other anchors are.
@Wonz: You are absolutely right. CNN put out this 2 page press release about Saving Haiti, as was shown on TVNewser, and then never followed through on actually airing the show. (Something tells me AC and Sanjay were probably really annoyed by this,) and decided to "wrap it up." Just guessing.
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