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NYTV
Aaron Brown's Summer Job
'If there were room for one more Charlie Rose ...'
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NYTV
“The good TV and the bad TV were often in conflict,” said Aaron Brown.
It was a recent Wednesday afternoon and the longtime television anchor and correspondent was sitting at a table in Harry’s of Hartsdale, a nearly deserted steakhouse, a few short blocks from his home in Westchester County. He was reflecting on his career.
Mr. Brown was dressed casually, in a short-sleeved black cotton polo, a bit of white stubble standing out on his well tanned chin. He leaned back in his chair and, by way of demonstration, tapped his right shoulder and then tapped his left. The angel speaking into one earpiece, the devil whispering into the other. Covering Hurricane Katrina versus covering Anna Nicole Smith.
Such is the life of cable news anchor, he explained. A life he lived happily from July 2001, when he joined CNN as a news anchor until November 2005, when the cable news channel dumped him for Anderson Cooper. Mr. Brown smiled. Goodbye to all that.
“I don’t sit around and say, I wish I had a show,” said Mr. Brown. “Because I don’t. I’m very happy teaching. If I can do gigs like this one this summer, that’s going to be great.”
He's anchoring Wide Angle—a PBS documentary show focusing on international affairs, which essentially fills in for Frontline when that program goes on vacation each summer. All told, Mr. Brown will anchor seven episodes, ranging in subject matter from a piece about the atrocities in Darfur to an in-depth look at women’s rights in Afghanistan.
A waiter arrived at the table, and Mr. Brown ordered the lobster bisque and a cappuccino. He seemed like a man who was enjoying not being in too much of a hurry.
He explained that the day before, he had taken the train into Manhattan. Wide Angle is produced by Thirteen-WNET, New York’s flagship PBS station. So he spent the day there in the studio, working on episodes, and marveling at how un-jaded folks are in public television.
“There are a lot of people there who are talented and who haven’t been beaten down yet,” said Mr. Brown. “The staff that I work with, it’s like a different business. They haven’t yet had to do Robert Blake. They haven’t had to go home at night and say, ‘what did I do today? Why did I do that?’”
Which is not to say that Thirteen-WNET is without professional angst. Back in February, Neal Shapiro, the former president of NBC News, officially took over for William Baker as C.E.O. of the Educational Broadcasting Corporation (EBC)--the licensee of Thirteen-WNET. Mr. Shapiro arrived at the job, promising to shake up the status-quo, and he has moved quickly. In recent months, Mr. Shapiro has enacted several rounds of layoffs, as he has worked to reorganize the station and to make his production staff more nimble.
At one point last year, when he was the verge of taking over the station, Mr. Shapiro reached out to Mr. Brown to see if there was anything he might be interested in doing at Thirteen-WNET. The two had known each other for a long time. They had worked together years earlier at ABC News. Mr. Shapiro’s wife, Juju Chang, had edited Mr. Brown’s first piece for World News Tonight. And at one point earlier in their careers, they had even lived in the same apartment building in Manhattan.
After much back and forth, the two old colleagues—the television executive looking to speed up his station’s metabolism, and the longtime, breaking-news anchor who was looking to slow down his—found a common interest in the Wide Angle job.
“My immediate reaction was that this is the right length of time,” said Mr. Brown. “It’s a summer job. It’s material I find interesting. And it’s an audience that I haven’t yet offended.”
Mr. Brown said that on the Fourth of July, he and his production crew will jump on a plane to Jordan, where they will spend one week on the ground, shooting material for the final episode of the season, focusing on Iraqi refugees. Typically, the Wide Angle documentaries are done much further in advance. But Mr. Brown said that Mr. Shapiro wanted the station to have the experience of producing one at a much faster clip.
“He pushes people in a constructive way,” said Mr. Brown. “Whether the organization PBS needs to change in a changing media environment, I don’t know. But I think being more topical is a good thing generally.”
The food arrived, and for the next hour, Mr. Brown talked about his career—what he accomplished in the past and what he would still like to do in the near future.
He said that recently, he had teamed up with a producer in Arizona to create a pilot for an hour-long public radio program, which would be a mix of one-on-one interviews and feature stories.
For the pilot, Mr. Brown traveled to Arcosanti, the utopian architectural roadside attraction in the Arizona desert, and interviewed Italian architect Paulo Soleri. “I like to interview people, and I do it well,” said Mr. Brown. “If there were room for one more Charlie Rose….”
The pilot is sill being shopped around. In the meantime, Mr. Brown will continue to teach journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Teaching undergraduates the mechanics of journalism, he says, is not something he believes in. As such, he refuses to teach vocational classes. This fall, he will again teach a class on the history of television news.
The class begins with Mr. Brown showing his students footage of Edward R. Murrow interviewing Marilyn Monroe on CBS’ Person to Person. The lesson is simple. Even the great ones do fluff; even the icons of the business do tabloid. If Mr. Murrow were alive today, he’d be doing stories on Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, and rendition. But chances are, he’d also be chasing down exclusives with Miley Cyrus.
“At its birth, television news was a child of the entertainment business,” said Mr. Brown. “It will be a child of the entertainment business at its death.”
Mr. Brown said he has grown accustomed to confessing his own journalism sins to his students. Admittedly, he did some tawdry stuff in his day. At ABC, he spent many months of his life covering O.J. Simpson. At CNN, he once spent four straight hours covering actor Robert Blake and the charges that he had murdered his wife. “Four. Fucking. Hours. It was the dumbest four hours ever," he said. "My wife gave me crap when I came home. I was like, I don’t need this. I’m not feeling good about myself.”
He also likes to tell his students about the time when Princess Diana died and ABC put him on the Concorde to get him to England. When he got to the scene of the accident, he put in his earpiece and Peter Jennings told him: “OK, I’m going to ask you how her death will affect the Labor party.” Mr. Brown had been in the country for 45 minutes. A few days later, Mother Teresa died. Mr. Brown wanted to go. His bosses told him to stay put. The Diana coverage was putting up huge numbers.
There were also moments along the way that make Mr. Brown feel good about the history of television news and proud of his role in it. Until he began teaching, Mr. Brown had never gone back and watched his own coverage of September 11. But his students were curious and persisted and now the footage has become an important and sobering part of the class. A reminder that there are days in American history when anchoring the news of breaking events does matter.
And on those big breaking news days, Mr. Brown still misses it, and momentarily questions his sideline status. When the shootings at Virginia Tech happened, Mr. Brown had only recently left CNN and on that day, he remembers wishing he were back in the studio. “There are some days when you are what you are,” said Mr. Brown. “I was born to be a reporter. But if you are going to do it, you have to be a public person, you have to deal with the silliness that goes on, and you have to worry every night about every quarter hour.”
“If you could just say I want a show on those 25 days that matter—kind of like Brokaw’s got—great,” he added. “But in the cable world you don’t have that luxury… Maybe I got tired. I don’t know. But I don’t miss the day to day of it. I miss days.”
Thank you Neal Shapiro -- for calling Aaron Brown. Hopefully, Thirteen will have consistent work for him in future. He is one of our best.
Aaron Brown should be picked for Meet The Press. He is definitely the right candidate.
I really miss Aaron Brown's commentary on the day's events. When we'd had a zillion different reports from radio, TV and print about what had happened during the day, Aaron showed us how to think about it--and his low-key delivery encouraged us to do so. I also miss the reality checks he gave us. While others were reporting the news as though it made sense, Aaron's reaction to the bizzare let us know that we weren't crazy for thinking that this or that action was nuts.
Aaron, I am so delighted that you're going to be back doing what you do so well. I will definitely watch your summertime specials on PBS. Public radio would be foolish not to sign up for your interview series as well. I've missed your calm and steady voice, and also that sly twinkle in your eyes!
Aaron Brown is and was the best of the best and I still mourn the demise of NewsNight. Mr. Brown would be excellent for Meet the Press and I look forward to his PBS show. Good luck, Sir.
Aaron Brown and Ted Koppel are the last TV news greats around. Wonderful to have Aaron back!
One comment.
Charlie Rose is not a great interviewer.
I watch him, but I cringe at his technique.
When he asks a question he should just shut up and listen for the answer.
Instead, he has to suggest several answers as he expounds on his understanding of the topic - often interjecting that the guest knows much more about this than he does.
I agree with North Coast Curmudgeon! I quit watching Rose after I found myself yelling "shut up" at the TV! Bring on Aaron!
I sure miss Aron Browns commentary.
I've been wondering where Aaron Brown went. How lucky those students are to have him teaching them. He's one of the most erudite journalists I've ever seen.
My favorite Aaron Brown quote came shortly after Hurricane Katrina, when he nicely summed up the situation as having "plenty of blame to go around." As new details were uncovered in the following months, he was proved correct.
Aaron Brown was a terrific commentator when he was in Seattle and I watched him regularly when he moved to CNN. I've missed his broadcasts since and will looking forward to catching him on air when in NY. He has been missed - for his commentaries, his reporting, and his temperment.
Charlie Rose belongs in the Larry King category of interviewers. That is, he stinks.
Had Aaron Brown shown some of the piss and vinegar he's been showing since he got canned, he might have kept his job a little longer.
Aaron Brown was supposed to compete against Fox?? Give me a break. Paula Zahn, Anderson Cooper, Aaron Brown...CNN just doesn't get it.
Aaron Brown flew to England to go live from the Princess Diana's accident? Maybe that was part of his problem. She died in France.
Mr. Brown gave the commencement address to my son's Macalester College class 2005, in St Paul, MN. He was spot on with wisdom, humor and hopefulness for the students' journeys. He seems to be a truly good person in a porridge of pandering media heads. Hope his new show goes well.
I appreciate the comments I’ve read here about Aaron Brown’s ability to deliver intelligent– classy, even – reporting and commentary in a quiet thoughtful way. I watched him and Judy Woodruff religiously during the run-up and initial phase of the (ongoing) Iraq war. He and Judy were two of my main sources of real info during that crucial must-know phase, and I was there – tuned to CNN for several hours each day.
As the war began and progressed through the “shock and awe” phase, I began to suspect, however, that CNN had some editorial policies that seemed to offer an bias that I could not abide, which I later learned was correct. Aaron Brown admitted – on air – to support for those policies.
One was to keep blood off the screen.
Hey, during “Shock and Awe”, we were bombing the crap out of a city of 5 million people to get at a handful of really bad guys (most – or all – of whom where in Afghanistan). Anyone ever heard of “collateral damage”?
It seriously was CNN’s policy to keep any graphic (defined as including blood) images off our radar. No reporting on collateral damage. Nothing about how the “bunker busters” we rained down were in direct conflict with some crazy agreements (Geneva Conventions) made by our country with several others that prevented an combatant nation to despoil the land in perpetuity, which we were doing with every blast (by infusing depleted uranium into the ground and atmosphere, contaminating the ground for the half-life of uranium).
As regards the unpleasant sight of blood, I vividly recall one telling moment in CNN’s coverage. Anderson Cooper (who was temporarily at the helm – I believe Mr. Brown was in Kuwait, reporting with Darin Kagan at the time.) Mr. Cooper, in a classic CNN moment, calmly but fervently insisted, “Bring the cameras back, Walt. Bring the cameras back,” when an Iraqi man – wounded in the leg – was found alongside the road as a tank carrying the imbedded CNN Correspondent Walt Sadler, happened upon him and stopped to give medical assistance. It was an overwhelmingly heroic moment of which I was very proud, until I heard the insistent off-camera voice of AC begging the cameras to avoid broadcasting images of the physical (i.e.: actual) wound.
It was precisely at this moment that we (the American public, depending on the American media) hungered for the truth, deserved it, and had the courage to know it. It might have changed everything had we known it…then…at that crucial time. Everything.
Mr. Cooper was given Mr. Brown’s timeslot (two hours) and his own name in the program title as a result of his illustrious performance during this significant few weeks. Mr. Brown was ousted.
I don’t know what the beef was, but it could have something to do with Mr. Cooper’s allegiance to the editorial cause (although Mr. Brown admittedly shared that commitment), or it could mysteriously have something to do with Mr. Cooper’s age and vitality….and the fact that he had a similar aspect to an incredibly popular international anchor who had developed a following of millions of fans.
Either way, I can’t help but believe that CNN’s editorial decision to sanitize the war on the part of the “most trusted name in news” had the profound effect of denying the truth of this particular war to the American public.
At this moment, CNN had an immensely important responsibility to report the real war – good and bad, but did not have the courage to report it. CNN denied the American public the truth at this critical moment by its sanitizing policies, of which Mr. Brown was a supporter.
In that manner, they in fact implicitly elicited support for the war that may have not drawn that important critical initial support on its own merits. So, the commercial corporation, CNN, (as opposed to a neutral party) succeeded in their ingenious method of molding the truth by censorship based on their particular editorial policy in order to win ratings. Aaron Brown was a part of this.
We expect this from some news outlets (i.e.: Fox News), but actually tend to swallow the propaganda when it’s fed to us by CNN. It’s akin to child molestation by a trusted adult – as opposed to a stranger.
I recall that Mr. Brown made the proclamation on NewsNight that the UK’s “Guardian” was a “position paper”. That comment made me think of our President’s view on how listening the American public would be like “making policy based on a focus group”. CNN is a microcosm of the current Administration of the U.S. Government!
Despite the fact that Mr. Brown supported CNN’s censoring policy – on air – I believed him to be genuine, reasonable, responsible and truthful in his other reporting.
Mr. Brown said sometime later something to the effect that “At that time….I don’t believe we gave the opponents of the Iraq war enough credence.”
“There’s plenty of blame to go around” has also been said by Mr. Brown. I wonder if he considers himself to be part of the troupe that deserves some blame.
I do.
I don’t watch CNN anymore. Judy’s gone, Mr. Brown (for all of his misguided protectionist ideology) is gone. I see only a ridiculously incompetent ancient man who has his own show due to a literal “grandfathering” agreement and doesn’t even know who’s on his show, much less have the ability to formulate an informed question to ask (Larry King), a Jorge Ramos wanna-be who is an “Anchor” first and a reporter – well – never - and a bunch of other people who don’t really seem to get the point of what used to be known as a “news broadcast”.
I do recall with fondness the approach of Mr. Brown to NewsNight. I thought then, as I do now, that though misguided, his careful approach to the (completely adult citizens of the) U.S. were made as a loving parent who just doesn’t get how sophisticated his own kids are.
I love that Mr. Brown is a teacher now: He relates well to people who want to absorb the wisdom of the elders. He probably doesn’t find much dissent there, unlike the frequent emails I (and who knows how many others!) sent to NewsNight when what he said infuriated me. I love that he now contributes to a forum that promotes understanding without a commercial agenda. (Please, Mr. Brown, remember that part!) I just wonder how long he can survive there. If he can prove his meddle, I’ll be there, once again.
Good luck to you, Aaron Brown, and to America.
I so miss the crow of that darned rooster.
I have so missed Aaron Brown and wondered what happened to him. I don't watch CNN much anymore except for Lou Dobbs.
I agree that Brown would be an excellent choice to replace Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" even though Russerts shoes will be impossible to fill, Brown would be my choice for the spot.
The best anchor CNN ever had and they were too greedy to realize it. The garbage they (media) keeps feeding us is insulting; even when Aaron Brown had to report mundane, and unnewsworthy events, he did it in such a way you could swallow it and move on. Now i only watch BBC. Hope you find a niche so the American public can enjoy your reporting again.
Robert Prusso
Turlock, California
I MISS AARON BROWN!!! Just saw "Swing Vote" and his cameo role at the end brought me upright in my seat!! If only it were in real life. There has to be the right vehicle for him to bring back his gifts to TV. Surely there is still a place for thoughtful reporting with integrity!!!
My husband and I wondered where Aaron had gone. Right now I am following all the links on Aaron and am so happy to learn about his gig on PBS and NPR. We will definitely try to find him on air. We miss him and seldom watch Anderson Cooper. We're not "old", we just prefer Aaron's style. Maybe Anderson will grow into Aaron some day.
Dear Mr. Brown,
My husband hi are happy we found this method to thank you for all of the wonderful evenings you provided us. You were womeone we could believe and loved your voice. We just wish you well and know you must be doin something wonderful so we can enjoy it another day.
I like the International edition on CNN. Its fantastic that he managed to entertain viewers with a style of presenting that doesnt really exist anymore! Thanks!
Aaron, you may recall my comments published about your easy going presence in the article about you in the Atlanta Constitution a few years ago! Couldn't help but think of you, and my comment, on this day when we hear that Campbell Soup was yesterday's only winner in the stock market! It's definitely time for more of your "kitchen table" commentary! I hope that you will be given the opportunity to be heard more frequently by those of us who long for "down to earth" delivery of news.