FNC media-watcher Eric Burns scolded CNN's Aaron Brown
for leading his show one day last week by telling his viewers what
personally does not interest him in regards to the Jose Padilla
arrest. On FNC's Fox Newswatch, Burns referred to Brown's
“egomania” and suggested that Brown “uses the first person
singular pronoun the way carpenters use nails. Always 'I,' 'I',
'I.'”
Panelist Jane Hall, a former Los Angeles Times reporter,
helpfully recommended to Brown that next time he wants to express
his own view that he employ the phrase “Democrats say.”
On the June 15 Fox Newswatch, host Burns recounted how Brown
opened the June 10 NewsNight on CNN by emphasizing, before
reporting the story itself, how he was not “interested in seeing a
bunch of terrorists running around the country blowing up
buildings and killing lots of people while they are out on bail.
But I'm also not especially interested in seeing the government
deny citizens their most basic protection against governmental
abuse.”
For a complete rundown of Brown's priorities, see the June 11
CyberAlert: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/
For how Brown the next night defended how he opened the June
10 NewsNight, by claiming he was just “asking questions,” go to:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/
On FNC's Newswatch, Hall, now a journalism professor at
American University, asserted: “To me, I watched the Aaron Brown
thing, and I thought: 'I don't care what you're interested in.'
I'm old-fashioned enough to say, if you're going to raise
skepticism, say, you know, 'Democrats were saying they question
the timing,' not 'I'm not interested in hearing about a lot of
arrests.' I thought it was way off base.”
Burns referred to Brown's “egomania” before proclaiming: “I'm
not interested in what Aaron Brown is not interested in and I
wonder if this is some kind of new trend in anchoring. This guy,
Aaron Brown, and I really don't like to be personal, but there's a
real principle here. He uses the first person singular pronoun the
way carpenters use nails. Always 'I,' 'I', 'I.'”
Instead of “this is CNN,” maybe CNN could have Brown announce
a new ID tag: “I am CNN.”
(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center.)
