[Ha! I wonder if Aaron Brown numbers himself among "the people who work very hard each day to make {the program} better than anything the odd little world of cable has to offer." After all:]
Tue, February 4, 2003
CNN lead anchor finishes golf game
By DAVID BAUDER
NEW YORK (AP) - CNN said Tuesday it has no problem with its lead anchor, Aaron Brown, staying at a California golf tournament and not working Saturday when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated.
Brown's absence was notable when compared to the lengths to which other news networks went to get their marquee names on the air. NBC's Tom Brokaw, for example, cut short a Caribbean vacation to make it on the air by Saturday night. ABC's Peter Jennings, two hours away from New York City, made it to the studio shortly after noon. CBS's Dan Rather, who was in New York on Saturday, was on the air before 10:30 a.m. ET.
CNN's direct competitor, Fox News Channel, brought lead anchor Shepard Smith in by midday on Saturday.
Brown, who was playing golf at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in California, first appeared on the air Sunday night. He's been promoted as the network's top anchor, and was to be host of CNN's memorial service coverage Tuesday.
CNN uses multiple anchors for big stories, spokeswoman Christa Robinson said. In fact, it was a stroke of luck for the network that its NASA correspondent, Miles O'Brien, is the regular Saturday morning host and was on the air when the story broke.
Judy Woodruff, Lou Dobbs and Wolf Blitzer also worked on the shuttle story Saturday.
"We don't have to do planes, trains and automobiles to get our faces on CNN," Robinson said. "We're lucky to have a lot of stars."
Brown told the Palm Springs Desert Sun that going to CNN's Los Angeles office to work Saturday "didn't make sense because I didn't have any clothes[!]."
Brown also said he "felt a profound sense of sadness at what happened. It's horrible. A golf tournament, even a fun one, it didn't matter. It took the fun out of it for me."
Robinson said a report in the Los Angeles Times that Brown had told network executives he wasn't available to come to work was untrue.
[end]
Carl
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