The New York Observor on why CNN's Anderson Cooper was chomping at the bit to cover the tsunami disaster:

"In news, we tend to focus on one thing and forget that in many ways, in towns and villages and in people’s hearts across these areas, the disaster continues," he said on the phone. "Small and private are what’s most interesting right now. From a larger perspective, it’s the aid story, but on a personal level it’s where people’s heads are at and ‘Where are people’s hearts?’ and ‘How do you wake up and live every day in a home which has been wrecked and it’s hot and the smell wafts across your village?’ and ‘How do you think about your future?’ and ‘Where do you go?’ And that’s what I’m most interested in."

It was in hell holes like this one where Mr. Cooper had earned his stripes as a TV guy, first as a scrappy Channel One kid toting a Betacam around Africa, later as an ABC News correspondent. Now, with an imminent schedule shuffle likely under Mr. Klein, he was poised to helm prime time—Anderson Cooper Now, anybody?—with some critics suggesting he take over CBS Evening News after Dan Rather departs in March. But Mr. Cooper said he hadn’t been contacted about either job and those thoughts were far from his mind now anyway—he was too busy slogging through the humid wreckage of a Sri Lankan quagmire, witnessing the abject misery of the human condition.

"To me, one of the saddest things in life is people who were decent and living decent lives get killed or died and no one notices or celebrated the lives they lived," he said. "I just wanted to be here."

Cooper had been vacationing in the Dominican Republic when he heard about the disaster:

"I heard about it Sunday morning and I called in and was pushing to go immediately, and I was hoping to fly back to J.F.K. and just catch a flight," he said. "But, you know, it didn’t happen."

It didn’t happen for a lot of news networks. The question why is probably a big one, and when a reporter addresses whether President Bush reacted too slowly to the unfolding disaster in the Indian Ocean, it was hard not to see a bunch of pots calling a kettle black.

Jon Klein, CNN’s recently hired president, said he was reluctant to send Mr. Cooper off while the anchor was conducting the network’s field reporters, but he eventually relinquished when it was clear Mr. Cooper could wait no longer.

"At first, I was absolutely against it," he said. "And then as I saw the revelation of his connection to the story, I just felt that he could meet the challenge that you face in week 2 of a major story like this, which is to advance it."

The CBS News veteran added that he felt Mr. Cooper "owned" the story and that his career would be defined by the tsunami coverage in the way that other world-class anchors were defined by their coverage of other historic events.

So does this also explain why Cooper seemed to be on the hurricane beat in 2004? Certainly it's refreshing to see a name-brand anchor who's literally unafraid to get his feet wet and his hair mussed in pursuit of a story. I used to feel a bit sorry for him - thinking he'd pissed someone off and was being punished by being put on disaster duty - but apparently it's all part of his enthusiasm for the job. And of course for the desire to raise his profile.