RIP Aaron Brown

Aaron Brown, veteran ABC News anchor, dies at 76

 

Shoot, I remember watching his Sept. 11th coverage. First day at CNN, and he was "the guy" who carried it through. Similar to McKay's coverage of Munich. Steady, not hysterical - didn't start speculating or doing the Wolf Blitzer thing where he spends a minute talking and saying nothing. I believe Brown took over for Bernard Shaw as CNN's "chief anchor."

 

Always very good.

 

Brown was a total pro. And he knew what was coming. The cesspool cable news would become. A giant failure in presenting, you know, NEWS. It's all bullshit angertainment and it has made our country worse.

From his AP obit, from a 2008 interview.

Looking back at this time at CNN, Brown said he was confronted by the challenge of doing serious journalism while also being in a “very ratings-driven environment.”

“I don’t want to get into the business of indicting cable TV, but some of what went on was just television, not journalism,” he told The Associated Press in 2008.

“I didn’t practice the ‘high church’ of journalism all the time, but I think there was some sense that I was uncomfortable in that other, tabloidy world, and I think viewers knew that and I couldn’t pull it off," Brown said in that 2008 interview.

 

One of those reporters who knew he was there to tell the story, not become the story or spin the story. Some of his most creative work may have been where he got his network start, ABC's overnight show, "World News Now."

 

Mmmmm Thalia Assuras

 

He often came across, to me at least… as awkward on the anchor desk.

Ideal for C-SPAN or MacNeil-Lehrer.

Had two people who were students of his at ASU and said THAT was his true calling.