Category Archives: News & Current Events

CNN – Anderson Cooper

News & Current Events,

Although not formally trained in journalism, Anderson Cooper is certainly the big hitter at CNN. He has his own evening show on CNN called Anderson Cooper 360 which he has hosted for 8 years and he runs live, normally from New York or a place of newsworthy interest.

Anderson Cooper entered the limelight at an early age with his mother being Gloria Vanderbilt, the famous fashion designer and heiress and his father being the writer Wyatt Emory Cooper. He appeared in television shows and modeled as a child.

He has had quite a varied life and career and spent a lot of time on the ground in war torn areas like Rwanda, Burma and Vietnam. He had a spell on ABC news, ending as co-anchor of a nightly news show. In his current CNN news show, Anderson Cooper tries to go behind the news stories to get different takes on the issues involved.

Recently, Anderson Cooper started his own daytime talk show called ‘Anderson’ – perhaps in a bid to fill the slot left empty by the Oprah show recently and to get a bigger hold on a possible global audience, outside of the major news niche.  Reviews of the new show, also showing on CNN, were mixed in the first week, but it will obviously take time for the show to bed in and for Cooper to get used to finding out what audiences want to see.

In the meantime this is just another stepping stone for the attractive, silver-haired American.

Rupert Murdoch, News Magnate

News & Current Events,

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian born media mogul who became an American citizen in 1985. He inherited his news empire, News International, from his father in 1953 and went on to turn it into one of the biggest businesses in the world. The company, News International, has media outlets all over the world including The Sun in the UK, Britain’s biggest selling daily paper.

In 2011, one of Murdoch’s British papers was involved in a phone tapping scandal which rocked the newspaper industry and ended in the shutting down of the News of the World paper with the loss of hundreds of jobs.

Murdoch himself claimed no part in the phone tapping scandal but his son was asked in for questioning by parliament which had got involved in the case, but he is still under investigation for other irregularities in his business by the CBI.

In addition to owning the Sun Rupert Murdoch also owns the Times and the Wall Street Journal amongst a wealth of other global titles numbering over 150 around the globe. In addition he runs a large number of global and national TV networks and also owns 20th Century Fox. Truly his hold over the media of the world should not be underestimated.

Election Results

News & Current Events,

Around the world election results are often in the news, whether it is countries in the Middle East who are fighting for democracy or an overthrow of the current government, or if it is UK local election results or US district election results. But one question that needs to be asked is ‘how much do minor or local election results get influenced by the current overall situation of the country?’

Although local elections have their own agenda, it is difficult for a lot of voters to distance themselves from the National picture. For example you have David Weprin blaming President Obama for his loss in the New York ninth district election, saying that the voters used the election to show their dislike of Obama’s policies and in fact his stay as President.

Likewise in the UK when local council elections occur people will often vote according to their national politics or to make a point against the current Government in power. It would be fair to say the there are a lot of people who firstly may not realise exactly what they are voting for (in terms of local policies) and secondly may think that their vote will count on a national level.

Election results then, can be a message to the government on how the people think that they are doing and governments would do well to heed any of these messages that are coming their way with negative connotations. It is often the case the with a large swing against a government in local elections, national election results will also swing in a similar manner unless some kind of action is taken.

2012 Calendar – Mayan/Aztec Predictions and Books

Arts & Humanities, News & Current Events,

Most people have heard that the world is supposed to end in 2012. Whether or not you believe this might happen there is plenty of information out there that says there will be an apocalypse on 21 December 2012. There are many skeptics out there (and I am one of them for sure) that say the 2012 calendar stories are just rubbish but we will not find out obviously until it is maybe too late.

There have been a few books written all about the 2012 calendar predictions and no doubt there will be a few more before the date hits us. Some people have been carrying out detailed investigations into the predictions which were made thousands of years ago. If you want to check out books on the 2012 calendar theory then take a look at this: