Aaron Brown to anchor PBS show

Seattle Times, United States - Aaron Brown, the former CNN anchor, is joining the PBS series "Wide Angle," ending his on-air absence of more than two years.

"If I was going to do broadcast journalism again, be a public person again ... then it had to be something different from what I'd done," Brown said. "You can count on one hand how many gigs there are like this."

Anchoring "Wide Angle," a weekly public-affairs series with a global focus, offers the chance "to work in an environment where people just think about making good TV and good journalism," Brown said.

"By the end [of an episode], you understand the world you live in and how it's connected to you," he said.

Brown, 59, who left CNN in November 2005 during a shake-up that gave his time slot to rising star Anderson Cooper, said he was contractually barred from working in TV until last June. He's been teaching at Arizona State University as its first Walter Cronkite Professor of Journalism.

"Wide Angle" begins its seventh season July 1.

Brown has his broadcast roots in Seattle. He was a reporter and anchor for at KING and anchored the evening news on KIRO.