You remember Aaron Brown, don’t you? The congenial, and fact oriented journalist who hosted CNN’s NewsNight until he was unceremoniously fired last November. I always liked Brown, because, despite the occasional smug utterance, I at least felt he took the news seriously and tried to give a fair and accurate picture of events, rather than just buying into the Republican spin cycle.
Well, today he gave a speech, and what he had to say is a searing indictment of the status quo as it operates in the “Infotainment Business”:
“Truth no longer matters in the context of politics and, sadly, in the context of cable news,” said Aaron Brown, whose four-year period as anchor of CNN’s NewsNight ended in November, when network executives gave his job to Anderson Cooper in a bid to push the show’s ratings closer to front-runner Fox News.
Brown said he tried to give viewers a balanced diet of light and serious news with NewsNight. “But I always knew when I got to the Brussels sprouts, I was on thin ice,” he said.
Too bad the “brussel sprouts” are what America needs most from its broadcasters these days.
With the departure from the screen of the “titans” — Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather — who “resisted the temptations of their bosses to go for the ratings grab, it will be years before an anchorman or anchorwoman will have the clout to fight these battles,” he said. […]
Important issues, such as the prosecution of the war in Iraq at home and abroad, are being clouded over by “mud-wrestling” that skirts substance, he said. Consider what he called “the swift-boating of John Murtha,” the Democratic congressman whose war record was smeared when he called for an exit strategy in Iraq. “Cable didn’t search for the truth, but engaged in mock debates pitting those making the charges against Murtha’s defenders,” he said.
In many ways, this has been the worst consequence of the conservative momement’s successful assault on our country’s politics and culture — the destruction of unbiased and accurate reporting. This is why we need an independent media, something to stand in opposition to the easily manipulated and lazy corporate controlled media that currently casts an ever darker shadow on our democracy. With the way things are today, with constant cutbacks in the news departments of the various networks and in the halls of our Nation’s newspapers, we losing not only the ability to investigate the lies being fed to us, but also the ability to disseminate the truth even when we can discover it buried amidst the manure heap of spin, lies and prevailing stereotypes that all too often passes for wisdom among our punditocracy.
Until we do, our “free press” will only continue down the path of selling lies, confirming prejudices and validating ignorance.
Wow.
I hadn’t heard about his speech at all, Steven. Thank you so much for reporting this.
Broken record here: I miss his nightly show so much, I can’t stand it. I have NOTHING against Anderson Cooper but they’re “dolling up” the news on his show in a way they never did with Brown.
With Brown’s show, every night, I knew I’d get almost all of the news worth hearing about — maybe not all I wanted to know — but a chunk of it. And his “lighter” features actually had substance — such as the closing segment with the next day’s newspaper headlines.
And, just in case others here haven’t seen me share this before, while I never knew Aaron Brown — he came to KING TV (Broadcasting) after I’d left — I know, intimately, the culture in which he LEARNED news.
KING TV in Seattle, at that time, was the gold standard. It was the “Tiffany” of network affiliates. Its news programming was better than anything you’d see on today’s CNN or MSNBC.
The Bullitt family owned it and had deeply old-fashioned liberal views but were also immensely savvy business-wise (at least, the older bunch was), and they hired savvy execs.
It was an amazingly exciting, inspiring, dramatic place to work, and its ingrained in me, as it has to be in Aaron Brown … once having seen the best, and been a part of the best of the on-air products, as Brown was, it’s too hard to step down too far.
I hope Aaron Brown finds a great position that is worthy of his talent.
For starters, I’d like to see a NEW news network with Aaron Brown, Keith Olbermann, and Amy Goodman as prime anchors.
He wasn’t perfect, but he was head and shoulders among the rest of CNN’s miserable cast.
Lord yes.
I hope no one else saw, this morning, Daryn Kagin’s (sp?) appalling interview of actor Pierce Brosnan. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t give a damn, but she painted him into such an awkward corner, and so ridiculously, … I felt badly for the guy who, thankfully, is sharp and handled it very well — although his hesitations before speaking spoke volumes about how utterly appalled he probably was.
She and Rush Limpballs deserve each other.
Reasoned, high-brow discourse matters so very much.
And every time we lose commentators, anchors, and interviewers who are gentlemen and ladies, who are interested in learning more and disavow “gotcha” journalism, we are the losers.
For example, I still miss Tom Snyder’s late night interview shows. Sometimes they were nuts, and terribly funny. Sometimes he talked about the most serious matters in the world.
Then there’s Charlie Rose who drives me nuts sometimes but whose guest line-up I always check because I LEARN SOMETHING from his show … he opens new worlds to me ….
and Aaron Brown sought, within the constricted confines of CNN, to do the same.
Here’s a wild thing that he got to do at KING TV in its heyday: At 6pm, they had a half-hour local news show — and there was almost none of that crap with car chases, murders, etc., etc. — which was then followed, every night, by a half-hour show on ONE subject, in-depth. And it was on topics like environmental issues, traffic, international affairs, relationships with China, and on and on. It was astounding, and they nearly killed themselves putting those shows together every day.
All gone now because the station was sold and now it’s like all the others.
like what KPIX-TV is trying to do down here; they have a half-hour show called “30 Minutes San Francisco” that goes into one story in depth (and since they’re a CBS affilliate they can steal…errr, borrow the “60 Minutes” stopwatch… 😉 ). Haven’t had a chance to check it out yet…
As for Aaron Brown, time for another email to MSNBC suggesting they hire him and give him a show to follow Keith’s, making Rita Cosby a Special Reporter in charge of Missing White Persons In Peril…
Ps. Cross posted at Daily Kos.
Amen! What susanhu said!
and could have sworn it said “Aaron Burr”!
Thought wtf is he talking about…?
Too much Medicare D and single payer info for me…taking a much needed break from it tonite…
My, my. Look at this: LINK
Another Payola Scandal… This Time Fox News Columnist On Big Tobacco Payroll
With reference to the work of Jorge Amado, Jubiaba’, specifically, he reveals a character who has closed, “the eye of mercy,” who ultimately gets what’s coming to him.
Aaron Brown still had his “eye of mercy” open when he left CNN, and for that he retains my greatest admiration.
For the rest…
Exquisitely said.