Coop Scoop: A Very Special War Story
Read all about "Journalista" and we crazies who covered Central America
October 6 2023
By Marc Cooper
If there was a way to conduct balloting among that rough and tumble journalistic rabble that I was part of that covered the wars in Central America there is absolutely NO question who would be elected Prom Queen. Hell, there wouldn’t even be a vote.
Cookie Hood who worked for CBS News and ran their Managua (and sometimes San Salvador) offices would win by unanimous proclamation.
Unless you were on the ground there in the 80’s you probably never heard of her. Even after all these years I’m not sure what her official title was. She served as office manager, bureau chief, fixer, producer, reporter, correspondent, surrogate mother to lonely reporters and the first and last person you needed to see if you had any sort of problem that needed some immediate solution. You need a driver who knows how to avoid getting captured? Call Cookie. Need to get an interview with some bloody Army general. Call Cookie. Need to somehow get that video package onto the plane 10 minutes before it takes off. Call Cookie. Need somebody to sweet talk us past this roadblock out in the boonies. Call Cookie. Want to know where the best party is tonight and who is gonna be there? Call Cookie.
In the end, Cookie Hood WAS CBS News Central America. Period.
The child of upper class Nicaraguan she knew everybody and everything there was to know about the region. Be it Somoza’s whose children she played with. Or Pablo Escobar who she hung out with. Or the Sandinista leaders who she knew on a first name basis. The Salvadoran revolutionaries or simply the best place to eat if you get stranded in Estelí.
I have referred to her in the past tense only because it has been some years since I have seen her. But Cookie is very much alive and as usual is still out kicking butt. She has put together a fabulous nine episode podcast of her rollercoaster life as a war journalist and an observer and organizer of the insanity that was going on at the CBS NEWS office in Nicaragua!! War, partying, danger and a whole lot of other stuff.
And on the most serious note: Cookie was the driving force behind CBS’ very good coverage of the wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador (I did a segment for CBS’ West 57th on El Salvador’s urban guerrillas). Cookie was no desk jockey. Not only would she venture into the field, and I am talking about jungle battle grounds, she would fearlessly lead the big name correspondents who would fly in for a day or two get their mug on camera in front of all the groundwork that Cookie had set up for them.
Without Cookie Hood, CBS would have been deaf, dumb and blind in Central America.
The 9 episode podcast, BEAUTIFULLY produced, is a total gas. Cookie is one of these special people whose lives are very difficult to describe unless you are an expert on describing hurricanes and tornadoes. Here’s the teaser, You’ll get the drift. Link to the entire series is below it.
After you have sampled the teaser it’s time for the actual podcast.
Listen to the JOURNALISTA podcast series here.
And check out Cookie’s Journalista FB page for an ongoing rush of great photos from those very agitated days.
The photo below is from San Salvador 1989 when I co produced a CBS segment on Salvador’s urban guerrillas and their plans to imminently stage an assault on the capital (which did occur). That’s me in the middle. On my right is my good pal Richard O’Regan who was the lead producer. On my left, my good friend Frank Smyth who led our field camera crew into the guerrilla camp on the slopes of the Salvador volcano. Frank now runs Global Journalist Security.
P.S. I don’t have quite the wealth of war stories that Cookie has but I must say I’ve got a damn good pack of them. About 10 or 12 years ago I started a web site telling those stories but I let it go dark. I have decided I am now going to sporadically publish my Reporter War Stories as part of or adjunct to the Coop Scoop starting as soon as next week. Keep ur eyes open. Here’s my teaser: Lunch with Idi Amin. Dinner with Daniel Ortega. Getting drunk with Oliver Stone. Blowing the mind of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. Flying around in a Soviet MIG combat helicopter. Wandering across the cease fire line in the Sinai and getting strafed by Israelis. Nabbed by secret police in Egypt. Picked up by the Argentine death squads. And, scariest of all, working at the regional center of corruption and degradation known as USC School of Journalism! ++
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