When it comes to television news, viewers are getting mostly what they want, a CNN correspondent said during an appearance Monday night at Kansas University.

“It seems that people expect their news to have a slant,” Anderson Cooper said. “Everyone sees things, it seems, through their own lens.”

Cooper, a 1989 Yale graduate, spoke to a crowd of several hundred people, mostly KU students, in the Kansas Union Ballroom as part of the 2005 Student Lecture Series put on by Student Union Activities and Student Senate.

In some instances, having a cable TV news show is like being a carnival barker, Cooper said.

“If you yell loud enough, you can get your own show on cable TV,” he said.

Cooper, who has his own news show, “Anderson Cooper 360°,” is noted for a quieter delivery, but said he struggled to balance his show with stories he thought were important and which he was passionate about while keeping an eye on the ratings. He said he favored a mix of news, but he noted the public wanted a lot of coverage of the Scott Peterson murder trial.

Cooper has covered many of the major breaking news events around the world during the past several years. He called the war in Iraq his most challenging and most dangerous assignment. The large amount of security CNN and other news crews have to use can distort the perceptions of reporters, he said.

“You can’t forget you are a target,” Cooper said.