A PBS Assignment
for Aaron Brown




Aaron Brown returns to the airwaves this summer
to anchor "Wide Angle", the weekly PBS international affairs series.
Photo by Bettina Hansen/ASU

Compiled by
LAWRENCE VAN GELDER
NewYorkTimes.com
April the 29th, 2008

Aaron Brown, below, a former anchor for CNN, will return to television after an absence of more than two years when he joins the PBS “Wide Angle” series, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Brown said that his new job as anchor of “Wide Angle,” a weekly public affairs series with a global focus, offered an opportunity “to work in an environment where people just think about making good TV and good journalism.”

The series begins its seventh season on July 1. Mr. Brown, 59, left CNN in November 2005 during a shakeup that gave his time slot to the rising star Anderson Cooper. Mr. Brown said he was contractually barred from working in television until last June. He has been teaching at Arizona State University as its first Walter Cronkite professor of journalism.

Aaron Brown Returns to Broadcast Journalism This Summer to Anchor WIDE ANGLE, the Primetime Current Affairs Series Presented on PBS by Thirteen/WNET New York

New Host Will Bring The World Home In Weekly Reports From Around The Globe

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Acclaimed international reporter and news commentator Aaron Brown will return to the anchor chair this summer as the new host of WIDE ANGLE, the weekly primetime international affairs series on PBS. With his engaging, award-winning brand of insight and analysis, Brown will bring substantive understanding of worldwide issues to American audiences. Among the topics to be explored: the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur; the young Chinese generation poised to take the reins of an emerging superpower; pioneering midwives in Mozambique, the re-emergence of Japan’s military; and Venezuela’s attempt to convert its oil boom into “21st-century socialism.”

WIDE ANGLE, a production of Thirteen/WNET New York, launches its seventh season on Tuesday, July 1 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS and continues weekly through August 19 (check local listings). No other primetime program provides deeper international and foreign policy coverage – anticipating the headlines of tomorrow through the eyes of people living them today. Since its inception the series has garnered dozens of awards and widespread critical praise.

“Aaron brings a quarter century of distinguished journalism experience to our viewers,” said Pamela Hogan, executive producer of WIDE ANGLE. “His incisive ability to interpret world affairs is a perfect complement to our mission – to draw on front-page news and under-reported stories from around the world to help Americans better understand how these issues impact our lives.”

Brown remarked, “The challenge of making global issues accessible and relevant is never easy. WIDE ANGLE has successfully accomplished that goal for years. I am delighted to become a part of a team and a program with such a rich history of doing good and important work.”

As series host, the former anchor of CNN’s NewsNight with Aaron Brown and ABC’s World News Tonight Saturday will introduce the films, interview experts about the issues raised and participate in interactive Web chats following the broadcasts.

WIDE ANGLE’s urgent international reporting continues online at the WIDE ANGLE Web site, http://www.pbs.org/wideangle, where viewers will find additional video features, interviews with filmmakers, and resources for further investigation into the series’ topics.

WIDE ANGLE episodes for 2008 include Heart of Darfur, a nuanced report on the international crisis in Sudan that has resulted in more than 200,000 deaths and displaced some 2.5 million others. With the Darfur Peace Agreement in shambles, WIDE ANGLE provides an eyewitness account from the heart of the conflict – capturing the desperation of daily life in a refugee camp and rebel-held villages – and follows General Martin Luther Agwai, commander of the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur, on a mission into hostile areas to coax rebel leaders and Arab tribes to the negotiating table.

Other episodes in development include an unprecedented view of the shifting role of Japan’s military in post-war society; a profile of midwives in Mozambique whose training has led to a dramatic decline in maternal mortality rate; and a report on the high-pressure world of Chinese students as they prepare to become 21st century leaders.

Funding for WIDE ANGLE is provided by PBS, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Josh and Judy Weston, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, and Bernard and Irene Schwartz.

WIDE ANGLE is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York. Pamela Hogan is Executive Producer. Nina Chaudry is Senior Producer.

Thirteen/WNET New York is one of the key program providers for public television, bringing such acclaimed series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Wide Angle, Secrets of the Dead, NOW With David Brancaccio, Exposé, Bill Moyers Journal, and Cyberchase to audiences nationwide. As the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro area, Thirteen reaches millions of viewers each week, airing the best of American public television along with its own local productions such as New York Voices, Reel 13 and Sunday Arts. Thirteen extends the impact of its television productions through educational and community outreach projects – including the Teaching and Learning Celebration – as well as Web sites and other digital media platforms. More information can be found at: http://www.thirteen.org.

http://www.businesswire.com/po.....5944&newsLang=en

Wow, what an unflattering photo...

Brown's one of the good ones, nice he's back.

When I first watched Brown, I thought he had a non-objective slant to his reporting and wondered: "Is CNN okay with this?"

Then I saw Lou Dobbs!

Glad to see he picked up some work although I doubt there ever was a plan to hold a Tag-Day for Aaron.

Aaron Brown on King, Olbermann, O'Reilly, Himself
by Gail Shister
TVNewser Columnist
MediaBistro.com
May 1st

CNN exile Aaron Brown likes Katie Couric, but he loves Larry King.

If, as is rumored, the embattled CBS anchor has any designs on King's 9 p.m. real estate at CNN, Brown isn't buying.

"I love Larry. If Larry wants to work at CNN until he's 110, I'm there," says Brown, named Monday as anchor of PBS's weekly international affairs series, "Wide Angle." Its seventh season launches July 1.

"Larry has paid his dues for a long time," Brown says. "This is his moment. He should get to leave the stage any way he wants to leave the stage."

It may take a crowbar to pry King off CNN's stage. For starters, the network just extended his contract another two years to June, 2011.

And at 74, despite painful moments of cluelessness with even borderline-hip guests, King still draws some of CNN's strongest numbers.

According to Brown, 59, erudite master of the long pause, he and King bonded on Brown's his first day at CNN (on 9/11). He left in November 2005.

"Larry was always gracious and fun," says Brown. "We'd meet for breakfast in Beverly Hills with his Brooklyn gang. I'd have dinner at his house in L.A. We'd meet in New York whenever he was there. His stories cracked me up."

Brown has heard the whispers about King "being an old senile guy," he says. Not true. "Everybody has good nights and bad nights. You can't do 250 programs a year and go four-for-four in a week.

"I actually think his relationship with his audience is very simple, and more complex than anyone understands. Viewers see him as naturally curious and as the least judgmental person, ever. They just allow him to do his work. That gives him the freedom to ask anything."

Speaking of freedom, Brown, who knows how to play the angles, has found a good one at PBS.

After collecting his $1.8 million-a-year CNN salary for not working from November 2005 until his contract expired last July, he wasn't looking for a full-time gig.

With "Angle," he'll punch in from May to August in New York, where WNET produces the show. That grooves perfectly with his teaching at Arizona State, in Tempe.

"I didn't want a big-deal, high-profile job," he says. "I'm having too much fun in my life. I find the chapter I'm in to be almost perfect. With this show, I expect to do a fair amount of work for a short-ish period of time. It's not a forever thing."

The deal began last fall over lunch with WNET's Neal Shapiro. "He asked if I'd be up for something if the right thing came along," Brown recalls. It did.

Brown says he never felt like a real cable guy. That doesn't exclude him from having opinions about it, thankfully.

His take on the battle at 8 p.m. between MSNBC and Fox News Channel, for example:

Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly "are both larger-than-life figures," he says, but Olbermann is "smarter, funnier, better read and eminently more talented."

Welcome back, Aaron Brown.

First saw Brown when he was on KIRO.  I think he's great.  Can't forget his 9-11 stuff.