How does Anderson Cooper’s statement, ‘hope is not a plan’ fit today’s events?

August 8, 2011

I saw an ad for Anderson Cooper’s new talk show coming in September. The ad shows Anderson sitting with Oprah–an excerpt from an interview some years ago. She compliments him on his coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She remarks that he got it right when he said, “Hope is not a plan.”

I thought that it was a bit ironic in the light of the day… after our nation’s credit rating has been downgraded and the U.S. stock market lost 634 points… and the news is covering it round the clock–a reminder that “the audacity of hope” is …hope without a plan…

And what can we do about it? Stop listening? Stop talking about it?

We have talked about in this forum before, news coverage has been found to lead to compassion fatigue. As Susan Moeller wrote in her book about compassion fatigue more than a decade ago in 1999 [http://www.amazon.com/Compassion-Fatigue-Media-Disease-Famine/dp/0415920981], the effects of nonstop alarming news and no messages about concrete actions to represent effective responses: fatigue, exhaustion, and an inability to even feel anything about anything…

Here is the concrete action I seek: no matter how hard it is,

….stop responding by placing the blame on someone else.

Stop doing the same thing over again and expecting different results… 

Author: Roxanne

I have always loved to learn. After years of trying to pick a major as an undergraduate, I met a professor who guided me to graduate school. And from graduate school, I learned that I could always go to school and keep on learning. And so I have... View all posts by Roxanne