CNN’s Aaron Brown reveals some more uncomfortable truths about the nature of the news business these days, though not surprising if one has been following the continuing discussion regarding these matters on USTV over the years.

Brown, who described cable news anchors as “highly paid piece(s) of meat,” began his TV career as a reporter and anchor at KING-TV News in Seattle. In December 1991, he joined ABC news to anchor “World News Now,” the network’s overnight newscast. In 1993 he joined “ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.” In the summer of 2001 he was hired by CNN to launch “NewsNight with Aaron Brown.” He has received several journalism awards, including an Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks.He suggested his eventual demise at CNN resulted from criticizing the network’s obsession with lurid celebrity gossip while short-changing meaningful news.

He compared such “breaking news” to heroin ˜ it’s good for a while, but will eventually make you feel used and dirty

“The news in this country is a business,” he added. “You might not like to think of it that way, but it is.”

And as a business, the question becomes “who owns it and who profits?”"

The question that is the 800lb gorilla in the room.

Brown goes on to bemoan the fact that news is not delivering real information for people, and failing the primary function of journalism.

As veteran journalist Richard Reeves pointed out on freedom and the press, “real news is the news you and I need to keep our freedoms.”

Read the Aaron Brown story Here