After Anderson Cooper and his camera crew were set upon by supporters of President Mubarak in Cairo on Wednesday, his bosses at CNN urged him to leave immediately as they no longer could guarantee his security. But Anderson has told them "no way" -- this was the biggest story on the planet, and he wasn't going to miss reporting on it.

"What people [may forget] about Anderson is that he is a real reporter. Some dismiss him as a pretty face and nothing else, but that isn't the case. He's the real deal," a network insider tells me. "Anderson's passion is for news. When a story breaks his first instinct is to jump on a plane with a camera and to document the real story. Other network hosts talk the talk from their luxury studios, but Anderson is on the ground."