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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 2, 2006 Brown not looking to jump back in By Robert Plain Ashland Daily Tidings On 9/11, a billion and a half people around the world watched Aaron Brown report on the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Now, the former prime time CNN anchor, who was in Ashland on Wednesday, refers to himself as “an unemployed anchorman.” Once regarded as a beacon of respect in the 24-hour cable news industry, which is often accused of putting a higher value on entertainment than news, Brown was let go in November, for reasons he did not wish to speculate on, saying, “You’ll have to ask CNN about that.” But since leaving the network, Brown has been traveling the country, expounding on problems with the cable news business. He articulates this by comparing TV news to a healthy, well-balanced diet. “I tried to present viewers a balanced meal,” he said. “What happens in TV a lot is you get a lot of desserts and not a lot of vegetables. I knew there were some stories we should do but that viewers would see them as Brussels sprouts. What people want are Twinkies.” He’s out of the business for the time being and said he has no immediate plans to try to go back. Instead, he said he would be honored to become something not unlike the next Bill Moyers, a highly respected independent journalist known for tackling stories the rest of the media won’t. “That would be fine,” he said. “Bill Moyers is one of the great and important journalists of my time. And I don’t use the word ‘important’ very often.” He began his career in 1979, at a television station in Seattle, working for Southern Oregon University’s own Paul Steinle. Brown said he landed the job not because of his talent but because of his persistency. He said he called the station every week for four years until they gave him his first job. “He became an anchor while there,” Steinle said, “and obviously he has done very well since.” Brown said he is probably the second most popular news anchor to come out of Minnesota, where he was raised, “next to Ted Baxter,” he joked, of the Mary Tyler Moore TV show character. He said he has “done everything I have set out to do in the business.” And that he is enjoying having the extra free time, noting this “is the first time since I was 16 that I don’t have something to do five days a week.” Interestingly, although he’s a television journalist, he says he doesn’t watch TV to get his news. Instead, because he lives just outside of New York City, he relies on The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. “I didn’t watch TV much when I did it,” he said. “I’ve just never been a TV watcher.” Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 226 or [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams