A bigger role for KY native Pamela Brown at CNN but still the ‘same mandate’
This weekend on CNN, there will be a new face at the anchor desk, although to Kentuckians, she might look familiar.
Pamela Brown, 37, the daughter of former Gov. John Y. Brown and former Miss America Phyllis George, will host CNN Newsroom on Saturdays and Sundays after eight years of reporting. She will also move to the position of senior Washington correspondent after the past four hectic years of covering the White House.
Expect segments on COVID-19, a possible Senate trial, the new Biden administration’s focus on climate change. Expect deep dives on policy. Expect ... some calm?
“During the last four years, there was this relentless attack on truth and facts that took up a lot of energy,” Brown said from the CNN studio in Washington this week. “Hopefully we can now focus on deeper issues that we didn’t get to do the last four years.”
The past four years have been a blur for Brown, as she covered the White House, gave birth twice and coped with the death of her mother during a pandemic.
“You woke up every day not knowing what the day would bring but you knew you’d be really busy,” she said. “There was always this feeling you had to be constantly looking at Twitter, it was all consuming ... trying to keep up with the conspiracy theories and tweets, you felt like you were on a treadmill and could never get off.”
I asked her if either the media or the public would be able to break its Trump addiction, that shot of adrenaline of outrage or shock that kept people scrolling through Twitter, and not incidentally, sent television viewership and big newspaper subscriptions surging the past four years.
“I have no idea,” she said, “but I do think there’s still an appetite for deep dive journalism, not just the chaos of the day. I do believe it’s good for democracy for people to be informed ... my hope is that people will be able to re-engage” with serious issues. “There’s been a lot of talk about, ‘will it be boring,’ but I can’t focus on that.
“I have a mandate that I still have under the Biden administration, I will still hold the powerful accountable, report the facts, do deep dives on policy.”
Although Brown has gotten a promotion, she’s hoping the new job will make her work hours more regular for her two children, aged 2 1/2 and almost 1.
“It’s been a challenge to figure out the balance,” she said. “I hope I’ll have more balance now, so when I need to shut off and be a mom I can, and don’t have to be on the phone waiting for a presidential tweet.”
Still, the job of television reporter and anchor has been fixed in her mind since at least seventh grade, when at Sayre School, she laid out her future plans as a LEX-18 anchor making $100,000 a year. Print journalism was never really thought of, probably because Brown spent a lot of time on television sets with her mother, who was one of the first women sports commentators and later became a co-anchor of the CBS Morning News.
“That was the path I was headed on from a young age,” Brown said. “She’d bring me on set with her and it was a comfortable setting in a weird way.”
Once the COVID-19 crisis is over, Brown hopes to make more trips to Kentucky to see family, including her dad, who is now 88.
“Going back to Kentucky grounds me,” she said. “I love Kentucky, I love it with all my heart ... I want my kids to understand where their mom grew up.”
But for now, it’s time to get the new show off the ground and into the ratings.
Brown says she’s a reporter first, and “I’ll be bringing my reporting to the anchor desk, really focusing on the facts and impartial reporting.” That also means making room for deeper conversations and interviews. “I want to have the people watching to say ‘I’m learning something from this.’”
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 4:12 PM.
