Anderson Cooper - 45˚ Podcast

I really like Anderson Cooper. First, for the fact that he actually shows up at a lot of his new stories, but not really in an ambulance chaser way, but rather to actually show you what he's talking about. It gives him an air of sincerity in addition to his overall sense of intelligence. While he went to the blue bastion of Connecticut education (far inferior to the NJ Orange, of course), he still seems like he knows a little bit about the world. Second, I loved his book -mostly because I've seen a few of the places he's visited, and found his descriptions and personal connections to what he saw touching. Now, he has a short video podcast (15-20 minutes) (that you can also just listen to) that sums up his nightly 2 hour report on CNN - Anderson Cooper 360˚. It's only been on a week or so, but the format seems to focus on whatever the biggest story has been, either through interviews, or more interestingly with discussions with or between involved parties, and then a quick sum up of many other stories, with pithy, occasionally snarky, commentary by various contributors. His conversation with Whoopi Goldberg about the Imus debacle was really interesting - her opinions were put in context by Cooper,which made it feel like a conversational debate between friends much more than an interview. The only bad part is the podcast comes out after the nightly report, so it's a day behind. However, you could always watch him live at 10pm on CNN. Read his book - Dispatches from the Edge - it's impressive on many levels.