Anderson Cooper Receives Temple University's 'Lew Klein Award'
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper visited Temple University today to receive the communications school's "Excellence in Media" award.
At the ceremony, he shared some personal history and thoughts on where the media is headed.
PHOTOS: 2012 Lew Klein Awards
Cooper (standing at far right in photo) went to Yale, but every year Temple presents the Lew Klein Award to a top media professional in addition to several of its own alumni.
Cooper told the audience that his career in journalism had not been a glide -- he couldn't find a job when he graduated in 1989.
"I figured, if no one would give me an opportunity I'd have to make my own opportunity," he told the crowd, "so I came up with this scheme, which was, I would just start going to wars by myself and maybe I could become a reporter."
Cooper notes that nowadays, with more media outlets than ever, journalistic standards are essential.
"I think there shouldn't be a Republican truth and a Democratic truth," he said. "I think there are facts, and it's our job to hold people accountable for them."
