In the middle of urgent news stories about the devastation caused by tropical cyclone Yolanda, which hit the Central Visayas region on November 8, CNN's Anderson Cooper unexpectedly made headlines after being slammed by ABS-CBN News anchor and radio commentator Korina Sanchez for his "inaccurate" reports.
The upshot of this unwelcome development—the focus should be on the news and not on the reporters, after all—is that Anderson saw many Filipinos rooting for him and criticizing Korina.
But who is Anderson Cooper?
Anderson Cooper is the host of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360°. He is a respected news anchor, and touted to follow in the footsteps of American news legends Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings.
Before tropical cyclone Yolanda struck, Anderson and his colleagues were already reporting about the "biggest storm ever recorded in history." And on November 11, three days after Yolanda made landfall, his crew flew to the Philippines to do live reports.
Anderson, who got to Tacloban on Day 5, was struck by the chaotic and ineffectual rescue and relief operations. Based on his experience in covering major calamities around the world, he said some order should have been established at least on Day 2.
Some of Anderson's recent reportage dealt with the terrible tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma, in May 2013 (in picture), and Hurricane Sandy which hit New York and other east-Atlantic parts of the United States in 2012.
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In 2005, Anderson Cooper received a Peabody Award for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina, which had deadly impact on the city of New Orleans and parts of South Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
That same year, he also received a National Headliner Award for Outstanding Coverage of a Major News Event for his reportial work on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
His most recent trophies (in photo) came from the 2010 Academy Awards for Television—better known as the Emmy Awards—for his team's breaking-news coverage, Anderson Cooper 360: "Haiti in Ruins," and the long-form current news story, Anderson Cooper 360: "Crisis in Haiti."
As a broadcast journalist, Anderson has been doing hard news and news features that cover many areas—major disasters, human interest stories, business debacles, political conflicts, and celebrity events.
His first post as a news anchor in 1999 was for American Broadcasting Company's (ABC) overnight television news program, World News Now.
Prior to that, Anderson had no formal training as a journalist.
He was, however, a Political Science major at Yale University, and a member of the secret Manuscript Society of Yale, which is known for having intellectual and artistic members, such as Pulitzer-Prize-winning author and journalist Ted Morgan, actress Jodie Foster, and filmmaker Robert Fiore.
While still a student, Anderson interned at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
For most of his childhood, Anderson Cooper—born on June 3, 1967—lived the very privileged life of the elite in a five-story mansion on New York City's swanky 67th Street.
His parents (in photo) were the author and screenwriter Wyatt Emory Cooper and fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt, who hails from the very wealthy Vanderbilt clan.
The Vanderbilts made their fortune from shipping and railroad empires in America in the 17th Century.
Anderson has an older brother, Carter (+); and two other brothers, Stan and Christopher Stokowski, from his mother's previous marriage to conductor Leopold Stokowski.
So what sparked the interest of a rich kid in the world of journalism?
The death of his father in 1978, after suffering from a series of heart problems, is said to have had a huge impact on Anderson's life. The book Families: A Memoir and Celebration (1975), written by his father Wyatt Emory Cooper (in photo), served as his own personal "guide" in making decisions in life.
In an interview published online at NYmag.com, Anderson told writer Jonathan Van Meter that he rereads the book at least once a year, just to refresh him on his father's Mississippi-rooted, simple-living sensibility.
Ultimately, it was the tragic suicide of his older brother Carter (right) that pushed him to start a career in journalism. Carter, 23, who jumped off the 14th-floor terrace of Anderson's very own bedroom in their mother's Gracie Square penthouse apartment, left Anderson baffled.
He and his mother Gloria looked into two possible reasons for Carter's suicide: One, a depression resulting from a recent breakup; and two, a suspected psychotic reaction from new allergy medication he was taking.
The pain of losing the two male figures in his life gave Anderson a wider view about grief and survival, which, as his mother told NYmag.com in the same interview, now enables him to do his job as a reporter with enough "compassion and maturity."
From Channel One to World News Now, Anderson took a job, in 2001, as host of a reality show called The Mole on ABC. He told NYmag.com: "Frankly, I didn't see much of a difference between the stuff that I was seeing on news shows and reality TV."
Then, in 2002 the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City happened, which left Anderson feeling compelled to return to news reporting.
He landed a job as co-host of CNN's morning show, American Morning, with Paula Zahn, and later co-anchored NewsNight with Aaron Brown.
He also became the network's weekend primetime anchor, and the established host of the annual New Year's Eve Special, which was aired every December 31, live, from Times Square, New York City.
Anderson's growing popularity prompted CNN to give him his own program, Anderson Cooper 360, in 2003. The show, which was meant to be a laidback news-and-talk program, got its biggest breaks in 2005, when Anderson covered major stories like the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the death of Pope John Paul II, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and the royal wedding of Britain's Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.
But it was his coverage of Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. that Anderson, in a real way, revolutionized broadcast journalism by introducing what analysts call the "emo anchor" —short for "emotional anchor."
Back then, Anderson reported from his father's hometown in Mississippi, and there he made the same in-the-gut, discomfiting-for-authorities comments that he did in Tacloban City when he reported on the aftermath of super typhoon Yolanda.
Filipinos will particularly remember his Tacloban, Leyte, coverage where Anderson said outright that government response was slow and ineffectual.
In photo: Anderson Cooper's likeness appearing on the cover of a 2007 issue of Out Magazine, which covers topics about the third sex.
Aside from his impassioned reporting, Anderson Cooper has become popular with the American audience for his open admittance that he is gay.
He did this in an e-mail interview with blogger Andrew Sullivan, to whom he said, "I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud."
Though he refuses to be known as "that gay anchor," Anderson said he felt obligated to "come out" because of the very principles that he learned from his father.
As he also wrote to Sullivan, "I've begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It's become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something—something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true."
(Clockwise from top left) Off duty, Anderson Cooper likes looking at art. He collects hand-painted movie posters from various parts of the world.
He also says he spends a good amount of his free time reading books.
He loves taking pictures of beautiful scenery, such as this lush island in Croatia. And he cares for his pet dog Molly.
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