Tuesday, September 13, 2005
CNN's Brown Heeds Old Mentor Jennings
Philadelphia Inquirer's Gail Shister writes, "What would Peter do?ABC'sPeter Jennings, who lost his battle with lung cancer last month, is very much onAaron Brown's mind as he anchors Hurricane Katrina coverage on CNN.
"I'm thinking a lot about Peter - how much he would have liked covering this story, and the things I learned from him," says Brown, 56, an ABC anchor from '91 until joining CNN in '01.
Lesson one: "Stay measured, stay calm. But balance that with being urgent." Lesson two: "Never get ahead of the story. The story is where it is at any given moment... . Your job as anchor is to keep it in context, in perspective."
When it comes to Katrina, Brown is the ice to Anderson Cooper's fire.
While Cooper has been filing riveting, emotional reports from the flood-ravaged New Orleans area, Brown has been holding down the fort in New York in his deliberate, understated style.
By the way, it's no secret that Cooper's stock is soaring. In addition to anchoring his 360 at 7 p.m., CNN began pairing him Friday with Brown on his nightly two-hour "State of Emergency" specials at 10.
CNN boss Jonathan Klein is big on connecting emotionally with viewers.
Getting angry on camera at politicians and bureaucrats, as Cooper and Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith have done over the past weeks, "is not a bad thing," in Brown's view, "as long as it doesn't become a caricature of what we should be."
"Viewers don't need to be spared that anger or frustration if it's a genuine reaction to an exceptional situation... . If it becomes theater, then it's a terrible thing. There are people who do it. I won't mention names." (Darn.)
Brown gets blasted regularly for his halting, some say plodding, delivery, but he's over it.
"I'm trying hard to find the right phrase. I wish I could do it faster for everyone's satisfaction. This is as fast as I am able to do it. I'm comfortable with the result.
"I'm bored with people who take occasional pops at what I do and why I do it. It doesn't mean anything. It's just part of the job."
On the other hand, Brown concedes that "maybe I am the tortoise in this business. I move pretty slowly sometimes. I want to see each chapter unfold. I don't let anyone - anchor, viewer, correspondent - get ahead of the material."
Brown says the culprit is TV's insistence on keeping the pace snappy.
"There's always pressure in television to make everything a sprint. This story is a marathon. I'm very conservative on how I report these stories."
# posted by ATN @ 7:15 AM 
