It all began with M.I.A., who took to Twitter to promote a documentary on Britain’s Channel 4, "Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields." Innocent enough. But then she dragged in Anderson Cooper. Out of nowhere, the controversial indie rocker accused the TV reporter by tweeting: "someone should make @AndersonCooper watch it / film it and show the world what happens when respected journos get it wrong."
Then the rocker dug in: "@AndersonCooper called me a terrorist for speaking out, and expressed support for the SLgov when this was happening."
Cooper, who seems to enjoy tweeting about topics that range from the killings in Syria to Miss Piggy to "The Good Wife," seemed genuinely surprised by the Twitter bomb. "What are you talking about?" he tweeted back. "You are mistaken. I never called you a terrorist." Then he threw down this zinger: "I don’t even know who you are other than the lady who sang at superbowl…By the way, I defended your finger pointing at the superbowl, so check your facts. I’ve no idea what youre tweeting about."
M.I.A. came back with: "in 2009 u linked to a articl that was written about me with false info. there was a rebuttal on ur 360 site…2 months later 1ce every tamil had been silenced including me, the SLGOV carried out the killing of 40, 000 civilians."
The talk show host then let loose some mad journalism skills on her. He responded, "you’ve gone from saying "I wrote", "I called you," to saying my cnn show blog had a link to an article. Big difference…we link to many articles with different viewpoints, and we gave you an opportunity to respond. I can understand your frustration if someone wrote untrue things about you, and I’m glad you were able to respond."
The two seemed to both come to a middle ground, with Cooper conceding: "the brutal war in SL has not gotten enough coverage in the US, and I know that’s very upsetting." M.I.A. added, "im glad u understand but please watch #killingfield because this is what i was trying to say." She added, "p.s thank you for defending my finger."
Feel free to comment and share this blog post if you find it interesting!
