Inappropriate selfies continue to pervade journalism.
To his credit, CNN’s Anderson Cooper is saying no to the celebritization of journalism. Namely, no selfie requests with him at the site where a Canadian soldier was murdered outside Parliament Wednesday.
As reported by Mediaite, the reporter who Cooper verbally shot down Wednesday is Vandon Gene, a contributor for Sun News who has hosted a show on the Tea Party News Network. By Thursday morning, Vandon appeared to see the error of his ways and apologized twice on Twitter. The same apology, spaced two hours apart.
I unreservedly apologize for my actions yesterday. It was completely inappropriate, disrespectful, and distasteful.
— Vandon Gene (@vandongene) October 23, 2014
Pre-apology, Cooper was quite harsh with Vandon — he swore at him in person and put his ass on blast on Twitter.
Vandon snapped, “Anderson Cooper EXPLOITS Ottawa shooting by flying to Ottawa but has decency to criticize me asking for a photo? I can’t believe CNN would employ you when you SWEAR to your fans. I covered this story properly. Check my tweets…”
Much like WaPo‘s Wesley Lowery to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Vandon (pictured here) ridiculously tried to counsel Cooper on how a real reporter covers a tragic shooting like Ottawa. “Hey @andersoncooper, while you were on a plane flying here, I was on the streets covering #OttawaShooting.” And this: “I simply asked for a photo. YOU are exploiting this tragedy by flying to Ottawa from NYC. I just got out of a 12 hr lockdown.”
So “swearing to fans” means that Cooper should stop and take selfies with Vandon? And OK, Ottawa’s Lowery, we got it. You’re the only reporter in the existence of reporters (since Wesley Lowery, naturally) who knows how to cover a tragic shooting.
As Cooper has been known to do on Twitter, he lashed back.
“Dude, you were rude and asking for a selfie near where a soldier was killed,” he wrote. “It was completely inappropriate. Think about it. I can’t believe any station employs you, and if you want to be a journalist, learn how to behave when covering a story.”
Vandon deleted the YouTube video as well as some of his more idiotic tweets, but Mediaite snapped it all up before the evidence disappeared. Watch it.
Some may recall that Cooper got this kind of star groupie treatment in Ferguson as well, where reporters were vying to take pictures with him amid the rioting. The story‘s headline didn’t leave much to the imagination:
“Who Are These Media Assholes In Ferguson?”
A more apt question today: Who are these media assholes in Ottawa?