Aaron Brown: Axed for criticizing celebrity coverage

[quaoar]

The former CNN anchor spoke in Oregon and described cable news anchors as "highly paid piece(s) of meat."

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2006/0302/local/stories/07local.htm

Former CNN anchor Aaron Brown had an epiphany following his network’s saturation coverage of the 2001 murder of actor Robert Blake’s wife.

The crowd that packed SOU’s Rogue River Room Wednesday night listened as Brown recalled shuffling home at 3 a.m. after a four- hour tour of duty reporting in excruciating detail a low-level celebrity shooting on the day four Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan. His wife was waiting up for him with only one question: Why?

"I am sure there were other things we could’ve reported that night," Brown said.

< snip >

He suggested his eventual demise at CNN resulted from criticizing the network’s obsession with lurid celebrity gossip while short-changing meaningful news.

He compared such "breaking news" to heroin — it’s good for a while, but will eventually make you feel used and dirty.

[rodeodance]

1. its the cables that shoud feel "feel used and dirty."

.....He compared such "breaking news" to heroin — it’s good for a while, but will eventually make you feel used and dirty.

[Selatius]

2. Whatever brings in the money, I guess. "Fuck the truth," they say.

Corporate news, in the end, is all about making money. Providing news is an incidental as a result. Our whole way of life is built upon this concept of providing a service in order to make money, but the key difference between providing a service in order to make money off of such a service and providing a service because something merits service is the difference between personal gain and public good.

I'm not denigrating anybody here who is a capitalist or works on Wall Street or owns a business or owns shares in a Fortune 500 multinational corporate giant, but I aim to speak the truth, and the fact of the matter is that everyday you go to work, you're trying to put food on the table, but there's a difference between worrying about food and worrying about your next paycheck for the million beyond the million you already earned for the year. That's not putting food on the table. That's excess instead, and you'd be wise to face the reality of what you're doing.

[AndyTiedye]

10. Whatever Keeps the Republicans In Power...

It isn't about ratings, it is about being a mouthpiece for the Republicans.

They say people don't want to hear about all the Republican misdeeds,
but when Clinton was in office, it was all Monica all the time,
even when their ratings suffered for it.

[iconocrastic]

16. Brown's error is to think that TV networks are primary sources of news

People who really follow the news know where to get it.

TV news is largely feel-good or feel-bad pablum for the masses (with some exceptions).

When we decry the MSM, are we not really saying we're upset that the public are more interested in "entertainment" than real news? (And of course, taking the wrong side of the "news" they show?)

[RevCheesehead]

3. That's why I cringe every time celebrity shit hits the air.

Most notably, when Keith Olbermann introduces a piece with "stories my producers are forcing me to do." :grr:

Where do we tell someone we don't give a rat's ass about Tom-Kat??

[existentialist]

6. take heart,

I do think that that it part of why more people are voting with their choice of electronic media and watching less television.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. I couldn't believe it when they replaced him with Cooper.

replaced one of the few shows worth watching with fluff. Cooper does a good job occasionally, like the Katrina coverage, but Brown was consistantly good.

[KansDem]

5. It's the "circus" in "bread and circuses..."

Entertainment has long been a narcotic for the masses, so keep us sedated with celebrity stories, and we won't notice the corruption of public figures and institutions. And you know what? IT'S WORKING!!!

Karl Marx is credited with describing "religion" as "the opium of the people." Today, that honor may very well go to "entertainment."

[izzybeans]

7. Maybe they'll bring him back to report on this whole Brokeback MOuntain

Oscar snub nonscandle. :sarcasm:

Celebrity obsessions are funny to me and those shows are like realtime satires. They just take themselves seriously.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. I remember Brown joking on air about NOT covering Laci Peterson

Not in a disrespectful way, but in a pointed way none the less. I watched Brown often and it was often obvious the pressure he was under at CCN to make his news show "fluffier", and I could see him get pushed into making compromises during the last year he was on. Obviously not enough to save his show though. I miss Brown.

[Village Idiot]

9. I remember that week VIVIDLY.

Four poor Canadian bastards killed by USAsian military incompetence and miscommunication (AGAIN, no less - shades of Kosovo!), and all CNN/Faux/MSGOP can show is Robert Blake. ALL FUCKING WEEK.

Up until this February, 2006, USAsian soldiers had killed more Canadians in Afghanistan than Afghanis. You will never see this on the news or in print, however.

Bad for business, I suppose. Anyhoo, here's a blast from the past just to remind you folks who the "good guys" are:

[blm]

11. When AOL bought control of CNN it turned into a toothless news network

in their greater effort to keep important issues AWAY from the greater public.

That made it alot easier for the facists to get their agenda through while Bush's actions and incompetence remained unscrutinized and unpublicized until a category 5 hurricane proved to be unmanageable and unspinnable for even the most articulate mediawhore.

[Selatius]

15. CNN was turning to crap long before the AOL Time Warner merger.

Time Warner, if you'll note, isn't anymore people friendly than any other multimedia corporate empire. Time Warner listens to its board of directors who are the major shareholders of the corporation. They don't listen to the people because the corporation is privately owned for private gain, not publicly owned for public good. This is the price we pay for tolerating private ownership over the flow of society's information: A misinformed or poorly informed public that makes decisions that are, in many cases, harmful to the public.

When people know more about celebrities, OJ Simpson, Michael Jackson, Lacy Peterson, and Terri Schiavo than they do about the failing education system, failing health care system, degrading environment, poverty, racism/hate, the national debt, or issues surrounding war and peace, you're living in a country that's sleepwalking itself into the graveyard of history.

[Marie26]

24. We need to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine"

and media ownership regulations. That right there would do a lot to solve the problem.

[Ignacio Upton]

12. Then why did he work complicitly to cover it for four years?

I remember right after 9/11, I thought that Brown would be a "serious voice" in the post-9/11 period (which, at the time, the only positive thing that I could think about the tragedy, was that hpoefully the MSM would be seriosu in its news coverage, boy was I wrong!) Unfortunately he covered many of those stories, from Michael Shakel, to Elizabeth Smart, to Michael Jackson (although Keith Olbermann devotes celeb time too, he relegates it to secondary status, I've seen Brown several times bring up the crap first.

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. Because he tried to save his job, MSNBC gives KO more slack

You are comparing apples to oranges. It was CNN Brown worked for. Compare Brown's old show to Larry King, or Paula Zahn, or even Anderson Cooper. Better yet compare it to Nancy Grace which CCN debuted not that long before they axed Aaron Brown on their Headlines News Channel. Her rerun each day ran head to head with News Night at 10:00. Brown tried to mix in some of the stuff CNN was demanding while continuing to cover real news. It wasn't good enough for them.

[LaPera]

14. They never say this shit when they are receiving a paycheck nor when

it will be heard most and cause effect on the air.

[roguevalley]

17. I liked him. By the way, that is my town newspaper reporting. GO ROGUE

VALLEY!

RV

[EVDebs]

18. CNN and PsyOps manipulate the media when, if truth be told, blowback

would have been avoided in the first place

CNN and PsyOps
http://www.counterpunch.org/cnnpsyops.html

I'm looking forward to seeing V For Vendetta. At least vicariously the people can overcome the M/I complex. Once the RFIDs and background checks (for keeping admin critics out of work permanently)

Total Surveillance
http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2005/12/albrecht.html ...

Couple this insidious technology with purposely erroneous background checks

Who is checking the background checkers?
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1128/p13s02-wmgn.html

They've offshored, outsourced, and privatized TIA. Now all they have to do is fire you for being 'of the wrong political party' and put false information in your background data...and voila ! You've just created the most insidious terror project in the US ever.

THESE stories deserve the spotlight, yet the missing blond du jour is standard media fare. And all the cable networks are doing it, not just CNN. Mr. Brown should feel lucky he's "out" of that ratrace. Alternative media, telling the truth, will (like water) eventually erode the facades the MSM puts up to prevent getting to the truth in the first place. We're too numerous, too inquisitive, and too persistent to NOT win out. They can put whatever barriers in the way, but the TRUTH will always out. Galatians 6 : 7 God is not mocked, a man reaps what he sows. So too the karma of our government !

[saltpoint]

19. Brown is a fine journalist and CNN should be ashamed of itself for

letting him walk out the door, no matter whether he was fired or whether he grew tired of the BS.

The man can write sentences that framed context beautifully.

I hope he returns to news journalism somewhere else.

[FrenchieCat]

20. CNN was not interested in a "fine" journalist.....nor are they interested

in Journalism.

Shame is not a word to be uttered on CNN unless they are speaking of those other than themselves.

[saltpoint]

25. Hi, FrenchieCat. Yes -- I do wonder sometimes why CNN settles for

so much less when it could stand for so much more. I love Christiane Amanpour. I consider her the best of the CNN team.

[0007]

22. He will! But shame on Brown, he knew he was heading for a shit

hole before he got there.

[JI7]

21. it's disgusting what CNN has become

[Marie26]

23. What is he doing now?

I hope he found a better job. CNN really went downhill after he left.