Something Requisitely Witty and Urbane

Aaron Brown Recap Redux

So, the Aaron Brown landslide that happened on this blog over the past three months or so has begun to die down (well, comments have... I still receive 2 or 3 a week, but traffic remains strongly driven by searches of people wondering "What happened to Aaron Brown?").  It was staggering to see that the most response I've ever gotten out of this blog was from a couple of throwaway posts about his departure.

So, it comes as no surprise to me now to see an entire Yahoo group devoted to Aaron Brown, as well as many, many more viewer comments lamenting his loss as though a family member had died.  I appreciate that many liked him... but read too many of these comments in a row and you begin to get caught up in the surreal comedy of it all.

Aaron Brown Recap

It's pretty much died down, but in the absence of blogging, my traffic has been kept afloat by this tiny little post I wrote about Aaron Brown's departure from CNN, on November 2nd. 

I've received hundreds of hits from search engines about Aaron Brown, as well as daily comments since the day I wrote the post, by people who are sad to see him go.

And the comments are like eulogies, almost as if there is a feeling that they are writing to Aaron Brown himself.  Here's a couple of samples:

Everynight, my husband and I tuned into New Night and Aaron Brown. I thought Aaron was one of the best Anchors in the past 10 years.

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From here it looks like blatant age descrimination that they are trying to make more palatable with a lame attempt at giving it a candy coating. They say there wasn't room for them both? Stuff 'n nonsense!

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Thanks for four years of great news coverage.
I loved your "weather reports".
Good luck Aaron!

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Aaron Brown was both COMFORTING and REASSURING during Hurricane Katrina, ...(when we first began listening to CNN over FOX), .......BUT YOU HAVE TAKEN THAT AWAY and given us a younger, emotional reporter who doesn't carry the same 'weight', ...we feel SAD like we LOST SOMEONE VERY DEAR, much like Lou Dobbs! DON'T TOUCH HIM!!!!!

It has amazed me, first of all that this blog became a forum for this, but the depth of emotion people felt about Aaron Brown.

I personally liked Aaron Brown a lot.  Much of it had to do with 9/11.  It was just one of the many very human story lines found within that day, but Brown, finally receiving an major, national anchor job mere days before the worst tragedy in American History occurred, and he had to cover it from a balcony in front of smoking and smoldering buildings.  You could just see it in his eyes: This was the time he had waited his whole life for, and now he had to cover it while watching his fellow New Yorkers die around him.

If there is this sort of outpouring of sentiment about his dismissal from CNN, then there has to be some network executive who realizes that hiring Brown will be taping into a waiting audience (CBS, I'm talking to you).

Bizzare Aaron Brown Web Happenings

I don't know if anyone else has noticed something strange happening.

I made a brief mention last week about CNN's decision to shitcan Aaron Brown in favor of Anderson Cooper, and, though it wasn't THAT big a deal, I mentioned that I'm kinda sad to see him go.

Almost immediately, I saw that my blog had become a destination for a much higher number of search engine results looking for "Aaron Brown" than would otherwise been normal for this blog.  And, randomly, these searches are yielding comments about people expressing dismay at Brown's firing.

I liked Aaron Brown, but I never looked at him as the "newscaster of a generation" or anything, and I haven't really heard anything, blogosphere wide, which would echo such widespread sorrow at his firing.  There has really only been the occasional, "Well, that's too bad," mention.

It's making me wonder if there isn't some sort of Aaron Brown publicity campaign going on.   Is there someone, on behalf of Aaron Brown, who is trying to start a netroots campaign to bolster public opinion of him?  Has anyone else noticed anything like this?

Aaron Brown...

I'm sorta sad to hear this news.  Aaron Brown is out as the host of NewsNight on CNN, to be replaced by Anderson Cooper.

It's too bad, because Brown was probably second, in my mind, only to Keith Olbermann for most interesting broadcast.  It always seemed pretty fair to me.  I guess CNN is trying to skew a younger audience.  We'll see.