"I've been called God's gift to anchoring and the world's biggest jerk. I get it. It's about proving to yourself what you've got. I don't have a damn thing to prove to anybody."


JON FRIEDMAN'S MEDIA WEB
Aaron Brown wants a new role on TV
Commentary: He'd love to host a talk show -- even on Fox
By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
Last Update: 11:18 PM ET Mar 24, 2006
This is an update to restore a dropped word in the seventh paragraph.
HARTSDALE, N.Y. (MarketWatch) -- Television news veteran Aaron Brown is a certified household name. He was a local star in Seattle before going national more than a decade ago, first with ABC and then at CNN.
Still, Brown has no illusions about the vicissitudes of fame.
Ten days ago, he was having dinner in Scottsdale, Ariz., with his wife and a friend. At one point, a waiter warily approached their table and stared at Brown, trying hard to place that familiar face.
Suddenly, the stranger brightened. "CNN, right!" he declared triumphantly. Brown, whose program "NewsNight" ended its run last fall, nodded politely
"I NEVER miss your show!" the waiter complimented him.
"That reminded me how important an anchorman is," Brown told me with a wan smile.
Anchoring the news seems like another world now for Brown, who appeared on CNN for four years. Now he says he is very much enjoying the time at home with his wife and teen-age daughter. "I can't remember a time when I've felt more at ease," he told me earlier this week.
Leaving CNN
Naturally, Brown was "disappointed" when CNN, a unit of Time Warner (TWX17.00, -0.09, -0.5%) , late last year pulled the plug on NewsNight.
The network gave the coveted 10 p.m., Eastern, time slot to the younger and (reputedly) hipper Anderson Cooper.
Cooper, representing a stark contrast to Brown's characteristically wry TV persona, won accolades for his coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster last fall. Cooper took pains to convey to the CNN audience his sympathy for the victims.
Oh sure, when we talked at lunch in this New York suburb, Brown, 57, sounded quite content about teaching broadcast journalism at Arizona State University, lecturing and writing his memoirs.
Even though the TV news profession tends to have more downs than ups for its practitioners, it continues to have a magnetic pull. Brown grew animated when he discussed his journalism prospects.
He said he's looking forward to a new TV opportunity. His agent is talking to prospective employers about everything from radio and TV news to, of all things, a gig as a game-show host.
Above all, he'd like to preside over a TV show that would be a cross between "Larry King Live" and "Charlie Rose." As Brown noted, "I was talking with Bill Moyers and he said, `What do you want to do now?' I told him, 'I think I want to be you.'"
Open to network offers, Brown would listen to Fox, CNN's most bitter rival, even though his understated style would seem to have little in common with Fox's in-your-face approach to broadcasting.
"I don't have a problem with them," Brown said of Fox. "They were competitors. I enjoyed competing with them."
Highs and lows
Brown has experienced his share of highs and lows in broadcasting.
Perhaps his darkest professional moment occurred a few years ago when a number of media writers blasted him. It appeared that Brown, who was playing in a golf tournament in California, didn't rush back to CNN to anchor a broadcast in the aftermath of the Columbia space shuttle disaster.
He nodded knowingly and said quietly, "They (CNN) screwed up -- I screwed up. I'd hope there would be a statute of limitations. (But) other people want it to be a defining moment for me."
And when actor Robert Blake was initially accused of killing his wife, it was huge news on the celebrity-fixated 24-hour news channels. Brown detests pulp-journalism but he did his duty and, for better or worse, his Blake show achieved unusually high ratings, by its standards.
The world according to Brown
Brown also said:
-- "I think Katie Couric will do it," when I asked if he thought the "Today" star would move to anchor "The CBS Evening News," a much-discussed possibility. "I hope she does. I think the world of her. She should ignore all those people who say it's too big of a risk."
-- "I like David Gregory a lot," referring to the brash NBC White House correspondent, "He's a good news guy. He's not afraid of those guys" in the Bush administration "and is doing what reporters ought to do."
-- ABC's Peter Jennings, who died of lung cancer last year, was "the best anchor ever. He mattered. When he died, I was an emotional mess."
-- "Uh, no," with a laugh, when I suggested that he might have been the role model for Albert Brooks' high-minded TV news correspondent ("AARON Altman") in the film "Broadcast News." In fact, Brown politely declined the filmmaker's invitation to appear in his most recent movie, "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" - even though Brooks remembered to point out their "Aaron" connection.
-- On the 40th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, Brown asked fabled CBS anchor Walter Cronkite how he felt when strangers often asked what it was like to report such a remarkable story. Mindful of Brown's excellent work on 9/11, Cronkite smiled and told him: "You'll see."
Odyssey
Brown grew up in Hopkins, Minn. As a teenager, he did a radio show in nearby Minneapolis and found his calling.
Shunning a college education, he eventually moved to Los Angeles and got a radio gig at the age of 21.
Anxious to try TV, he recalled: "I called KING in Seattle every Thursday for four friggin' years." He worked in Seattle for 18 happy years.
Will Brown's odyssey continue in the talk-show universe?
He said interviewing guests appeared to him because he'll "ask almost anything and I'm good at drawing people out."
If he had a wish list of guests, he'd place at the top of it Bob Dylan ("I'd ask him what was going through his mind when he made 'Blonde on Blonde!'"), Barry Bonds and Paul Simon.
"If there's another professional act in my career, it ought to have risk," Brown said. "Game on. I'm absolutely ready for that."
Brown doesn't worry that the critics might attack him if he returned to broadcasting. Leaning forward for emphasis, he said:
"I've been called God's gift to anchoring and the world's biggest jerk. I get it. It's about proving to yourself what you've got. I don't have a damn thing to prove to anybody."
MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: What did you like - or dislike - about Aaron Brown's work on TV?
FRIDAY STORY OF THE WEEK: "Fly into a Building? Who could Imagine" by Maureen Dowd (New York Times, March 22)
A READER RESPONDS to my question asking whether President Bush is sincerely turning over a kinder, gentler leaf with the media or is scrambling to pander to voters: "It's a good question and it was never answered. The American people deserve to know the truth since their kids are bleeding and we will eventually pay for it., if we ever get an administration that pays it bills. Don't build the President up. He is a liability not an asset." Steve Aspinal