“We’ll do it in a sentence, then move on. I was the anchor for the biggest story of our lives to the largest audience in the history of television.”
With that, former CNN anchor and Cronkite professor Aaron Brown was done talking about himself and his award-winning reporting during the 9/11 terrorist attacks on his first on-air broadcast as CNN anchor.
The night following the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Brown spoke to an audience of nearly 200 people, including many young journalists, about the importance of impactful reporting.
“I do not want to be any story, but I sure want to tell every story,” he said Monday night during the Cronkite School’s third Must See Monday Speaker Series of the year.
Rather than recount the details of his experiences, Brown used the opportunity to teach young journalists how to report on events that impact an audience.
A journalist should not just report numbers, but rather take into account every individual affected and realize that each person has a family that is affected as well, Brown said.
“Three thousand people didn’t die on 9/11, one person died 3,000 times,” he said, adding that if a reporter isn’t able to make their audience feel something, they fail.
Brown shared two multimedia pieces with the audience at the end of his speech. The first included still images documenting the 9/11 attacks and aftermath, combined with audio collected from the day of the attacks.
The second was a poem that Brown received from a woman who had worked in one of the towers and lost many of her co-workers and friends. The poem was read by actress Mary Tyler Moore and featured images of the men and women mentioned in the poem.
After showing these pieces, Brown, who was visibly teary-eyed, looked into the crowd with a smile and asked what they wanted to talk about next. The audience responded with silence.
Brown made a joke, but then seriously and encouragingly added, “I expect you to do your best stuff every day.”
Abbi Miles and Roisin Doy, both freshman journalism students, said they appreciated Brown’s speech and felt he helped them realize the importance of producing impactful journalism.
“It was a lot more emotional than I thought,” Miles said.
Doy said the reason she decided to attend the Cronkite School was because of Aaron Brown.
“I really identify with his love of storytelling,” Doy said, adding that it was a privilege to hear him speak about such an important topic.
Earlier that night, Brown mentioned that one of the reasons he doesn’t typically discuss his reporting during 9/11 is because he worries civilians cannot understand the emotions of a journalist faced with covering a tragedy, but still doing what they love: Being a storyteller.
“I was heart-broken. I wanted to scream and cry,” Brown said. “But I was exhilarated.”
Contact the reporter at carolina.m.lopez@asu.edu
