Former ABC and CNN anchor Aaron Brown granted an interview to TV Guide about his new gig as host of the PBS foreign-affairs chronicle Wide Angle. He told them today's journalism students were cynical because they saw "journalism failing" before the Iraq war. Brown declared that the cable-news business wasn't for him, because it was based on "big broad opinion guys" -- as if Aaron Brown wasn't a liberal crusader?
Brown, who teaches journalism at Arizona State University, said today's students don't know much about television history and don't have enough respect for his TV news icons, like the late Peter Jennings:
Their view of the business is very broad. They see it all as "the business," as everything from the Travel Channel to ABC. I saw the business when I was their age as the networks and local TV. Their view of television is much broader. They are also incredibly cynical. A lot of that has to do with the Iraq war. They just saw journalism failing.
TV Guide suggested to Brown "The cable news business sort of shifted under your feet in the years you were in it. You were hired as a guy who could report and anchor live for hours, but the business became more about personalities." Brown agreed:
Fox found its audience and the business was redefined as a business that loved or needed big broad opinionated personalities. When you look at what's successful on cable, that's what it is. Whether its Keith Olbermann, or Lou Dobbs or Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity, they tend to be big broad opinion guys. I was a news anchor of a different time. The people that I admired and taught me my craft were very traditional news anchors. Peter Jennings was the best news anchor ever born, not withstanding, he was a traditional news anchor.
It's certainly true that Brown sought to anchor in the mantle of Jennings, but both were liberal sermonizers. Let's go back to our MediaWatch newsletter and the earliest days of the Contract with America in 1995:
With Congress debating the Contract with America, ABC attacked its premise, citing voters as the problem -- for not realizing how many government benefits they receive.
On the January 5, 1995 World News Tonight, Aaron Brown reported from "Knox County, Tennessee...In November, it voted Republican, 2-1. Then and now, it likes the message of smaller government." After quoting residents unhappy with taxes and spending, he opined: "That's a pretty common complaint around here... It is also dead wrong. In fact, Knox County gets back much more from the federal government than its residents pay in." He castigated voter hypocrisy: "When people in Knox County talk of smaller government and less spending, they may mean it, they probably do. But do they want to lose this bus? Or this highway? Or this tunnel? Do they want to lose this lab? This cop? This teacher? Do they really want to make that choice at all?"
Yeah, right, Brown's no "big broad opinion guy." Brent Baker has more recent examples here.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
As usuall Aaron Brown misses the whole picture
July 3, 2008 - 08:53 ET by c5thenWhat he grew up watching and admiring were journalists who happened to work in the relatively new medium of TV. Most of them started out having to actually be journalists and investigate, analyze and report on their stories. Now we have "talking heads" that simply read the teleprompter and have no idea what went into the words scrolling in front of them.
The cynical attitude that he observes is from the disconnect from reality that most "news" shows have. It's all about pumping their idiology now, not finding facts and reporting them. Aaron got caught in the middle when the whole paradigm of TV news was changing. He couldn't decide if he wanted to be a journalist or an anchor.
The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic. Let's get it back! Alan Keyes '08.
Objective Journalism is Dead
July 3, 2008 - 09:09 ET by allanfApparently journalism schools subscribe to the notion that journalists make up a fourth branch of government. It is their job to hold politcal leaders accountable, especially Republican leaders.
A "liberal education" has come to mean liberal proselytizing by 60s professors, who are fortunately now close to retirement. But they have left their foul mark on journalism..Their liberal beliefs are rooted in the contempt liberals have for working people. Workers are wards of the dictatorship of the proletariat. These wards are incapable of making up their own minds but must be told what to think and who is good or evil.
Objective journalism is dead. Even worse, these wards refuse to cooperate and are fooled by "swift boating".
That's not too hard to believe
July 3, 2008 - 09:10 ET by theduck6We all view the world from our own vantage points. If you are an untra-liberal or a right wing nutjob you think people in the middle are radical. Unfortunately IMHO over the last few decades the middle has moved to the left considerably making perfectly rational positions seem radical to the new crop of mush heads.
That's the definition of bipartisanship these days. Move to the left and you are cooperating but ask me to consider a conservative agenda and you are preaching hate and prejudice. .. Even if it has a positive, definable, quantifiable track record .
Cynical eh?
July 3, 2008 - 09:09 ET by Bayshoreman"They are also incredibly cynical. A lot of that has to do with the Iraq war. They just saw journalism failing."
Typical of the traditional MSM elites, Brown's vocabulary and thought patterns do not contain the or even the concept of arrogance. So the new journalist students are "incredibly cynical"? Isn't that what a good reporter is supposed to be, i.e. not just taking someone's words and actions at face value but rather doing due dilligence and research to INDEPENDENTLY reach a sound basis for what really is the truth?
Incredibly, in his very next statement, Brown blames the Iraq war for their cynicism (probably without even doing one iota of solid reseach because he just KNOWS the why)...unbelivable! Hey Aaron, maybe their so called cynicism is from the way the MSM covered (and gave a free pass to) the neverending Clinton scandals from "hiding the cigar with the intern in the White House" to preisdential pardons. Or maybe they way Democrats are so heavily favored in the MSM over Republicans. For those who deny that reality...the word is arrogance!
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Arrogance - an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions
Iraq War
July 3, 2008 - 09:15 ET by allanfThe Iraq War became controversial only after insurgent activity continued into 2004. Then the Democrats backed awayfrom their votes and journalists began to pound Bush.
Of course, part of Browns journalism doesn't include holding Democrats accountable for their original vote. No -- in his calculus they had to be lied to. That's because he is not a journalist. In fact he just told us that.
Right on!
July 3, 2008 - 09:36 ET by BayshoremanRight on!
The problem is...
July 3, 2008 - 09:11 ET by saylmanI think the biggest problem was, and I think the movie Network summed it up even better than I could, is that once news coverage turned into an entertainment venue, it was over.
For instance, let's take Hannity and Colmes. I watch it, but it is an embarasment. There is no news on there. IT is a joke. Two guys on there and whichever guests you have pushing a certain agenda, they yell at each other, people don't turn it off, the American people are dumber now for lack of a general understanding of current events. And the guests they have on don't do the show any favors. These people aren't experts in their fields. They're policy guys pushing some agenda, trying to sell the audience on whatever talking point they have this week.
I picked out Hannity and Colmes not only because I think it is probably the worst offender on television, but it happened to be the last infotainment show I saw. All these shows are like this, and we should strive for better.
Well that's because Hannity
July 3, 2008 - 09:17 ET by motherbeltWell that's because Hannity & Colmes isn't, and was never meant to be, a NEWS show. It is political discussion. Opinion. Argument. Not "news."
Shoot 'em all; let God sort 'em out! - Marge Simpson
Yeah
July 3, 2008 - 09:26 ET by saylmanI know it is not a news program, that is what I take issue with. Because these are the shows people are watching, where they get their (dis)information, and it does not do well in educating people.
All the shows pretty much on the cable news channels are guilty of this.
I know a lot of people get mad when they hear that the viewers of the Daily Show get their news from there. I feel the same way about these programs.
Though, there is one basic diference between the people who are on the daily Show and the people on these cable news shows. The people who work on the Daily Show know their show is a joke.
I disagree with this "and
July 3, 2008 - 09:57 ET by Dan The Man 2I disagree with this "and it does not do well in educating people" because they do get people involved and do educate peopel on the issues they think are important. It is up to the people to do further research.
Nuke em til they glow then shoot em in the dark.
It's a bit late for another Russert tribute
July 3, 2008 - 09:19 ET by sarcasmoAnd this possibly belongs in an Open Thread, but in the hope that Aaron will see it, I'm going to repost the following from Paul Jacob's "Common Sense" column:
Tim Russert’s Different Angle
July 2, 2008
When
Tim Russert died, many journalists had many good things to say about
the “Meet the Press” host. Russert did his homework. He asked tough but
fair questions. He was a decent man, a family man, who never lost sight
of the important things. He had a zest for life.
But in all the praise for Russert’s virtues, was something being overlooked?
Former CBS journalist Bernard Goldberg thinks so. When Goldberg’s book Bias,
a critical examination of the media, was published in 2001, only one
person on the network news shows would touch it with a ten-foot pole —
even though the book was a bestseller and many Americans obviously
thought the topic important.
The exception was Tim Russert, who
spent an hour interviewing Goldberg on CNBC. Russert declared that “if
there’s a liberal bias or a cultural bias [in the newsroom], we have to
sit up and tackle it and discuss it. We have got to be open to these
things.”
Peggy Noonan, the former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, now writes commentary for the Wall Street Journal.
There, she agreed with Goldberg: Russert was eager to give non-liberal
points of view a hearing when other broadcast journalists turned a deaf
ear.
Wouldn’t it be a good thing, Noonan reflects, if many of
the journalists generically praising Russert for his open-mindedness
and fairness paid more attention to the implications of their own words?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
The tax & spend drug war looks racist in the real world.
We have been warned
July 3, 2008 - 10:03 ET by KC MulvilleWhat scares me is the implication that all of the students in journalism school are even farther left than Aaron Brown, so much so that they've got an attitude about it.
By definition, a journalist is someone who wants to tell you what's going on. (Kind of neurotic if you think about it.) They want to be the source for what you and I know about the world. But since our knowledge about the world dictates our response to it, the source of information can be a powerful position. That's why a good journalist isn't part of the story. A good journalist ...
Naturally, young people find it hard to stay out of the story, because young people are eager to shape their world. And now, Aaron Brown tells us, the next generation is itching to start shaping our world. And Obama feeds that narcissism. "Now is the time! We are the ones we've been looking for!" Be afraid. Be very afraid.
An inconvenient fact about Knox Co., TN
July 3, 2008 - 10:40 ET by nkviking75On the January 5, 1995 World News Tonight, Aaron Brown reported from "Knox County, Tennessee...In November, it voted Republican, 2-1. Then and now, it likes the message of smaller government." After quoting residents unhappy with taxes and spending, he opined: "That's a pretty common complaint around here... It is also dead wrong. In fact, Knox County gets back much more from the federal government than its residents pay in."
Gosh, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the county seat is Knoxville, and Knoxville is the home of the U. of Tennessee? Public universities always draw in vast quantities of federal and state tax money. What did Brown expect Knox County residents to do, chase the university out of town for the sake of ideological purity?
When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.