Aaron Brown, the former ABC News and CNN anchor, has died. He was 76.
CNN on Tuesday said Brown died on Sunday, citing a statement from his family. No cause of death was specified. Brown distinguished himself with his coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
As a longtime ABC News reporter, Brown was the original host of that network’s ABC World News Now program, and he went on to anchor CNN’s flagship NewsNight show that combined breaking news coverage with analysis.
Born on November 10, 1948 in Hopkins, Minnesota, Brown attended the University of Minnesota as a political science major, before signing up for the Coast Guard Reserve. After early stints as a radio host in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, Brown built his TV journalism career in Seattle working at the city’s NBC and CBS affiliate stations.
He moved to New York in 1991 to join ABC News as a reporter and the first anchor for the network’s overnight newscast. It was at ABC News that Brown garnered national attention for his work as a reporter on programs like World News Tonight, Nightline and Good Morning America.
He would become Peter Jennings’ primary fill-in anchor on World News and became the lead anchor for the weekend edition of the evening newscast, as well as co-anchor of GMA’s weekend edition. Brown’s hiring by CNN in June, 2001 was seen as a coup for the cable channel, which was looking for a worthy successor to Bernard Shaw to kick off its primetime lineup.
Brown had been hired to anchor the 8 p.m. hour and to lead breaking news coverage for the channel. But it was the events of September 11, 2001 that brought him to the rooftop of the CNN building in New York City to report firsthand on the World Trade Centre terror attacks, and eventually an Edward R. Murrow Award for his live coverage.
“In some ways, you were like too into it, too focused to be anything other than a reporter with the biggest story anyone had ever had,” Brown told NPR’s All Things Considered show in a 2011 interview. “I know I was exhilarated, which I know will sound strange, but it’s what I had prepared my life to do,” he added.
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