“Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself,” said journalist Anderson Cooper on his 360 blog.
On April 19, Cooper will be the last speaker for the Bryan Series at the Greensboro Coliseum.
Cooper has an extensive background in news and is most popular for his CNN primetime news program, “Anderson Cooper 360.” Cooper has also been on the CBS news program “60 Minutes.”
He has won numerous awards for his work including several Emmy Awards, a National Headliners Award and a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Journalism.
“I am excited about Anderson Cooper coming for the Bryan Series because he is a nationally and internationally known news investigator,” said Guilford College President Jane Fernandes. “I think that it gives student reporters and students who are studying media a chance to meet someone in the field.”
Cooper will also be meeting with students, faculty and staff from Guilford in a Q&A session on the day of the event from 1–2 p.m. in the Community Center’s multipurpose room.
The excitement surrounding the event is building not only on the Guilford campus but in the entire Greensboro community.
“When I heard he was coming into town, I was just really excited,” said Lauren Everette, an alumna of North Carolina A&T’s journalism program, in a phone interview. “Just the fact that I get to be in his presence and hear him speak really excites me. Somebody that’s my role model … I just have to go see them because it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
The overall layout of the presentation will be slightly different from that of previous Bryan Series speaker events. It will feature a longer Q&A period than other lectures and less time for Cooper to talk. According to Associate Vice President of Communications and Marketing Ty Buckner, this is the layout that Cooper prefers.
“We’ll hear him speak for about 30 minutes, which is little less than what we normally have, and then what he prefers to do … is have a sort of extended Q&A,” said Buckner. “We do it generally for 20 minutes; this time around you can expect that to be about 40 minutes.”
Getting somebody like Cooper to come to Greensboro is not an easy feat to accomplish. A lot of work and planning goes into scheduling the event.
“We work with about six to eight of the best speaker agencies in the country,” said Buckner. “Anderson Cooper is actually not exclusively with one agency or another, but the one we worked with in this case was the Washington Agency.”
People who subscribe to the Bryan Series help support the event and play a big role in keeping the series going.
“It’s a complicated process,” said Suzanne Ingram, associate director of the Bryan Series. “Since most of our expenses are paid by our subscribers, it’s important to us to bring someone who our subscribers would be interested in.”
Cooper is an iconic role model for a lot of people, not just aspiring journalists. For many, Cooper has made an impact in the journalism industry and inspires people to get the story right.
“I like how he’s not afraid to ask very bold questions, and, at the same time, he gives people a chance to tell their story,” said Everette.
