CNN screws over anchor Aaron Brown bigtime
November 2, 2005 
If you were suspicious of CNN President Jonathan Klein’s move after Hurricane Katrina to add Anderson Cooper as a co-anchor on Newsnight with Aaron Brown, you can trust your instincts.
Today Klein ousted Aaron Brown from CNN entirely and cancelled Newsnight, announcing the network now has no program to offer him.
CNN Ousts Aaron Brown and Gives Slot to Anderson Cooper:
Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., said today that he and Mr. Brown had mutually agreed that Mr. Brown would leave the cable news network because the new CNN lineup left “no options” for a program that would include Mr. Brown. “It is, unfortunately, a zero-sum game,” Mr. Klein said.
The realigned CNN lineup will place Mr. Cooper’s program “360,” which had previously run at 7 p.m. Eastern time weeknights, in the 10 p.m. time period that had been occupied for the last four years by Mr. Brown’s program, “Newsnight.” Mr. Cooper’s program will also expand to two hours, from 10 until midnight. CNN has experimented with that two-hour format over the past month, with Mr. Cooper joining Mr. Brown to serve as co-anchor of the program. […]
“We want to expose Anderson and Wolf to more people,” Mr. Klein said.
If you’ve ever watched Newsnight, you know it was a good program. It was a thoughtful newscast, with Aaron Brown recapping current news stories and often humanizing them. His final segment each weeknight featured a look at “tomorrow’s headlines,” with Brown holding up the next day’s front pages from the a variety of newspapers and ending with the Chicago Tribune’s silly front page weather forecasts.
The program tackled many important, and sometimes depressing, issues and news with a touch of grace, as told by a familiar anchor you felt you could trust.
Cutting Brown from CNN is a risk Jonathan Klein is apparently willing to take, but it is in no way fair or respectful to an anchor who has, along with Cooper, Larry King, Paula Zahn, and Wolf Blitzer, carried the network and kept in competitive. And now, his strategy to depend so greatly on Blitzer and Cooper (for 5 hours in primetime between them a day), while both dependable, seems very risky.
It’s okay to have cable news “stars” leading a 24-hour news network, of course. But Klein, in this case, seems to have had little respect for what Brown has done for CNN.
And that’s a real shame.
RELATED: TV Newser has a copy of the email Klein sent out to employees.
ALSO: TVGuide.com’s amusing scribe Michael Ausiello (or his fill-in Matt Webb Mitovich) has his own theory on why Aaron Brown was phased out: “If you’re going to blame someone, you out-of-control Aaron Brown fans, look no further than Saturday Night Live’s Darrell Hammond..” Touché.
December 30th, 2005 at 9:27 PM
I think CNN should have make a place for Arron Brown.That Wolf is depressing to listen to.I think Cooper is good but Brown was also.
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:17 AM
Honestly, what was CNN thinking when firing Aaron Brown - he is the most intelligent, experienced, calm and warm anchor CNN had for years. He was trustworthy in a mediaworld less and less concerned with in depth journalism. We loved Aaron Brown in Europe, he was a brilliant counter-weight to all the fast-speaking, superficial news-reporting that CNN usually provides for the viewers. But I guess the rest of the world outside of USA don’t count? You always got a little wiser by listening to Aaron. Mr. Brown will be missed, and I will have to go to bed one hour earlier every night.
Shame on CNN.
March 29th, 2006 at 6:53 PM
I am glad he is gone. What was so great about him? He never went into the field, he never actually reported. And that anchor hair! It would have made a good helmet if he’d gone to Iraq. Obviously, he didn’t need to spend so much time dying his hair…they replaced him with a gray haired guy! That’s how bad he was!!!!CNN sawhow pathetic he was…unlike some clueless viewers. And I don’t see anyone else breaking down the door to hire him.
April 18th, 2006 at 6:30 PM
I am 33 years old and I became a huge fan of NewsNight with Aaron Brown since his CNN debut on 9/11/01. I tuned in to this program every night just to see him and quirky behavior. I became hooked with the show and I would hurry home from my job so I can watch him. Since May 2003, I taped the program including breaking news using my VCR. I would watch them during my leisure and keep the best ones as archives.
On Wednesday, November 2, 2005, I saw the Associated Press headline stated “CNN’s Aaron Brown Leaving the Network.†I felt shock and disbelief. I printed articles from newspaper and media websites across the US including Minneapolis and Seattle via Google. I felt like a boyfriend abruptly breaks up with his girlfriend after four years.
I miss him terribly and deeply after NewsNight went off the air. Every night at 10 pm ET, I would look at pictures of him. I would go to sleep and try to dream about him all night.
I have not watched the final two weeks of NewsNight via VHS tapes. I would wait to see if he is ready to return to work. If he decides to come back to television, I am ready to watch and tape his new news program.
June 17th, 2006 at 9:10 PM
aaron brown was the best you had,jonathan klein made a big mistake.Cooper is no comparison. I switched over to fox news bring Aaron back and Im sure your ratings will go up.
June 17th, 2006 at 9:16 PM
bring aaron back and watch your ratings go up, I liked cnn but switched to fox, and why is Hemmer on fox now , you lost another good man.
January 1st, 2007 at 6:51 PM
I really don’t know what is going on in the heads of some of the people in television. Aaron Brown was definitely the best anchor that you had. Was he replaced because of the money that Anderson Cooper’s mother has? You sure made a mistake when putting him on in place of AC. Wolf Blitzer would bore a chipmunk to death with his monotone voice. Can you tell us where Mr. Brown has gone so that we can follow him? I can’t say anything about your morning Soladad newscaster either.