Over at
CNN, it's goodbye Aaron Brown, hello Anderson Cooper:
CNN ousted its longtime prime-time anchor, Aaron Brown, today in favor of Anderson Cooper, who has received extensive media attention in the wake of his widely publicized coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
CNN has experimented with that two-hour format over the past month, with Mr. Cooper joining Mr. Brown to serve as co-anchor of the program....The audience levels for that program have increased markedly in the last month, a development that CNN attributed to Mr. Cooper's presence.
I for one will miss Newsnight and Brown's sometimes hard-hitting and always stingingly witty critique of the news. Anderson Cooper just doesn't do if for me.
The
Minneapolis Star Tribune sums it up:
The ABC News veteran joined CNN shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and was widely praised for his coverage of that story. He was immediately pegged as the network's top personality and breaking-news anchor. But since early last year, the spotlight has gotten more and more crowded with the likes of Wolf Blitzer, Paula Zahn and Cooper, whose star rose with his coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Giving him the day's most prominent slot confirms his importance to an outlet that has regained some of the ratings ground it has lost, but still trails Fox News.
Good bye Newsnight, good bye Brownie, hello CNN's attemt to Fox-ify itself.