What leading voices in media are saying about Anderson Cooper's '60 Minutes' exit

Sports broadcaster Keith Olbermann shared the news about Cooper's departure on his Bluesky account, posting: "Anderson Cooper has left the sinking ship that is Idiot Bari Weiss's New Stormfront CBS."

Olbermann later added, "Now, people will only be able to NOT watch AC on cnn."

Cooper has worked at CNN since 2001, where he is a political commentator and hosts the "Anderson Cooper 360" show.

Brian Lowry, a longtime media columnist and current Hollywood correspondent at Status News, a media newsletter, wrote on X: "Have worked around Hollywood long enough to know nobody ever really leaves a job to spend more time with their family."

Tom Jones, senior media writer at The Poynter Report, wrote in his newsletter that Cooper's departure marked "the end of a journalism era."

Jones said that Cooper's exit "certainly adds more uncertainty in a news division that is very much in flux under relatively new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss."

He added: "It also raises questions about '60 Minutes,' the previous gold standard of TV news shows."

Lydia Polgreen, a New York Times opinion writer and the former editor in chief of HuffPost, posted to X on Tuesday: "I don't watch much TV news, but @andersoncooper is in a league of his own as a television journalist. A huge loss for 60 Minutes."

CNN's chief media analyst, Brian Stelter, wrote in his "Reliable Sources" newsletter Tuesday that there are open questions about which other correspondents might leave, "and on what terms."

"The risk is obvious: Loyal '60 Minutes' viewers will leave along with the correspondents they like to watch," Stelter said.

Trish Regan, the former Fox Business Network anchor, said on her YouTube channel on Tuesday that she "didn't buy" Cooper's statement that he was leaving to spend more time with his family. She added that people usually mention family in their departing statements when their company can't pay them enough or when their bosses want them out the door.

Regan said that Cooper's exit raised the bigger question of what would happen with Weiss, adding that it seemed like she was an unpopular figure at CBS News.

"The inmates are running the asylum, shall we say, over there at '60 Minutes'," Regan said. "They're just coming apart at the seams."

Regan added that she admires the moves Weiss has made so far at CBS News, including bringing in "more diverse political voices."

"In other words, you need some more right-leaning ones to go with all the lefties you get over there," she said.