CNN’s Anderson Cooper Now Reporting from the Philippines

Just saw on CNN that Anderson Cooper is now on the ground at the airport in Manila and reporting from there. (Actually more than reporting — he’s hosting two full hours a day of coverage from there.) He tried to get into Tacloban but they had to turn back to Manila because another tropical storm is hitting Leyte/Samar. But he’ll be going down to Tacloban later today.

This is very good news because Cooper will stay there for at least a week and devote almost full-time on his show to the Philippines at a time when the other networks and shows will move on and start covering other stuff. He will keep a focus on the situation longer than other newscasters and news organizations. He did this after the Haiti Earthquake, and Katrina.

Another good thing — he mentioned tonight that he is getting tweets all the time from people telling him that their families are missing and are NOT in Tacloban. He seemed to be very aware that the media is focusing almost entirely on Tacloban simply because they can get there, and the devastation is relatively easy to cover there. Meanwhile the typhoon ripped a path across the whole country and there are so many other areas to be considered. I really think he will do a good job of shining a light on that, and will keep the other areas from being forgotten.