CNN announces new Sunday show ‘The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper’

CNN has announced another addition to its lineup, this time a weekly, single-subject long-form show hosted by Anderson Cooper.

Cooper, who anchors “Anderson Cooper 360” weeknights, will helm the new show, titled “The Whole Story,” which will feature “character-driven stories, special interviews, profiles, and investigative deep dives featuring reporting from CNN’s anchors and correspondents,” according to the network.

Production is being handled by the long-form team, according to CNN.

The show is set for an April 16, 2023, debut, airing at 8 p.m. eastern. CNN is also providing a separate feed of the program for the west coast at 8 p.m. Pacific. 

CNN is already airing promos for the series, which are using a condensed version of CNN Sans for its logotype along with a OCR-style font for “with Anderson Cooper,” with Cooper’s name set inside of a box, though the actual logo could change before the premiere. 

To the right of the logotype in the promo is a detailed rendition of a camera lens, complete with specks of dust and the inevitable scratches, a look that helps reinforce the in-the-field style of journalism expected to be featured on the show.

The promo continues to draw inspiration from the shape of a camera lens and incorporates a rotating series of thin, concentric arcs with a tiny dot at the end.

These appear in off-white and red shades as both overlays over video and against a black background.

Advertisement

The name “The Whole Story” has some connections to the notions conveyed by the titles of Cooper’s “360” show and digital series “Full Circle,” and is also similar to “The Story,” which airs on Fox’s rival cable network.

The network also announced a preview of the stories that will be featured on the show:

• “What Happened to San Francisco?”: Anchor Sara Sidner travels to San Francisco, a metropolis that came alive during the technological revolution, to uncover the political and social issues plaguing the city by the bay.
• “Baby Powder Fears”: Chief Investigative Correspondent and Anchor Pamela Brown examines claims made by some of the thousands of women who say that Johnson & Johnson’s now-discontinued talc baby powder is responsible for their cancer.
• “Magic Mushrooms”: Used for centuries in ceremonies by traditional cultures, banned in the US for nearly 50 years, and now being re-examined after Oregon just legalized it, Correspondent David Culver surveys the world of psylocibin, taking viewers through the myths, the medicine, and the money surrounding the psychedelic plant.
• “Charles & Camilla”: CNN Anchor and National Correspondent Erica Hill goes behind the scenes of the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla.
• “A Migrant’s Journey”: Nick Paton Walsh, Chief International Security Correspondent, embeds with a group of migrants on their arduous journey on foot through the Darien Gap, from South to Central America, on their way to seek asylum in the United States.

Susan Chun will executive produce “The Whole Story.”

Cooper is also a correspondent for CBS’s newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” which largely airs Sundays at 7 p.m. in all but the central time zone.

That said, CNN has emphasized that “The Whole Story” is not a newsmagazine show, given that it is slated to only tackle a single story in each installment.

In that sense, it has some similarities to the network’s current strategy at 9 p.m. eastern under the “CNN Primetime” banner, where each night focuses on a single topic, though “Primetime” often uses town hall and other formats.