Darrin Reed Cowan (also known as Reed Abplanalp-Cowan) (born July 24, 1972) is an American journalist.
Cowan co-directed the GLAAD Media Award winning 2010 documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition with Steven Greenstreet.
Career
Cowan started his journalism career working as a radio disc-jockey for KNEU Radio in Roosevelt, Utah. In 1995, Cowan worked as a part-time on-air reporter for Fox's KSTU in Salt Lake City, Utah while a student at Utah State University. From there he assumed full-time positions as an anchor for KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, California, and as an anchor for WWTV in Cadillac, Michigan. Cowan next worked as a reporter and weekend morning anchor for KSL-TV in Salt Lake City.
After KSL-TV, Cowan moved to KTVX, also in Salt Lake City. While there, he anchored Good Morning Utah and covered the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, the murder of Lori Hacking, the death of former President Ronald Reagan and the fugitive stories of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs. For his work, Cowan was nominated and won Emmy awards for reporting.
Personal life
Cowan was born on July 24, 1972, in Roosevelt, Utah, and was raised in the Mormon religion. During his teenage years Cowan had a relationship with Gregory Abplanalp, who attended the same high school as Cowan. Cowan ended the relationship at the request of a church leader and went through years of various forms of conversion therapy, then married a woman at the urging of another church leader. During this marriage Cowan had his first child, Wesley, who died in 2006 after falling from a horizontal set of monkey bars. The marriage ended after three years and Cowan re-united with Abplanalp, whom he married on September 4, 2013, in Laguna Beach and with whom adopted three children. The couple sustained dozens of Utah’s gay couples receiving marriage licenses at the Washington County Clerk’s office on December 23, 2013.
Wesley's death prompted Cowan to found the Wesley Smiles Coalition, which works with Free the Children to raise funds to build schools in Africa. Cowan also made the 2007 documentary The Other Side of the Lens, which covers his emotions over his son's death and his experiences with the media attention Wesley's death attracted.
Cowan is also on the advisory board for Free The Children, a child advocacy organization, and serves as a producer for the youth organization Power In You. He is also an active supporter of anti-bullying legislation and has worked as a public speaker on the subject of bullying in school.
Film reviews
Cowan has produced and directed two self-made films, The Other Side of the Lens and 8. The Mormon Proposition. These were met with mixed reviews from film critics, with some praising his highly personal choices of subject matter while others criticized what they viewed as self-absorption, disjointed storytelling and substandard production as well as the overuse of stock footage.
The Other Side of the Lens (2009)
Cowan's first film, The Other Side of the Lens, explored Cowan's feelings as he mourned the death of his 4 year-old son Wesley in a playground accident. The film follows Cowan to an impoverished rural region of Kenya, where he sought to expiate his grief by raising money to build a schoolhouse.
On April 3, 2006, Cowan, then working as a television news reporter, Cowan was called to cover a story about a child who had been accidentally hanged from a set of monkey bars. Upon arrival he learned that the child was his own 4-year old son Wesley. The first half of the film expresses Cowan's anger towards the local news media, both for indifference towards his situation and for what he alleged to be inaccurate reporting. One report claimed that Wesley had hung himself on a swingset, suggesting a deliberate suicide, which Cowan denied. The film becomes a "therapeutic journal" in which Cowan processes his grief while critically examining his own role in sensationalizing the news in search of ratings and the furtherance of his professional ambitions.
The second half of the film follows Cowan seeking to fill the void left in Wesley's wake by raising money to build a schoolhouse for an impoverished rural community in Kenya. It depicts Cowan as a humanitarian whose trauma caused him to evolve as a person, highlighting his efforts to save children from violence which followed Kenya's December 2007 election.