CNN's Campbell Brown knows where her bread is buttered. As noted here at TCG, she is moving left, looking for an audience. And it's working, at least in terms of getting buzz--a front page piece in The Washington Post "Style" section, bylined by Howard Kurtz, certainly counts as buzz, big buzz.
Brown was never known for having any particular point of view in the first decade or so of her TV career. I mean, we can assume that all along she had acceptable liberal views (or if she didn't, that she kept them well hidden, as one pretty much has to day while working one's way up the chain). But now she is really coming out of the closet... as a liberal. Oh wait! Her boss at CNN, Jon Klein, calls it "common sense journalism." Ri-i-i-ght. That's what they have to call it, so that the goats out there in Heartland will hopefully watch.
But the fact is that she is moving left. Kurtz cites four instances of her "telling it like it is" in his piece--her disingenuous "free Sarah Palin" rant, her attack on Palin for connecting Barack Obama to Bill Ayers, and her attack on John McCain for "inciting crowds" in his campaign stops, and yet another attack on the McCain campaign for "race-baiting." No wonder Nicolle Wallace, a McCain aide, is quoted in Kurtz's piece, labeling Brown "one-sided."
And what about the counter-examples, of Brown calling out the Obama campaign? The best that Kurtz could find is Obama spokesman Bill Burton characterizing Brown as "tough." Ah yes, we all remember that interview, don't we?
Kurtz, always thorough and fair-minded, quizzes Brown on the question of opportunism. And her answer was revealing, because in her words we could see the gears of her mind grinding:
"That, to me, is a bit ridiculous," Brown says. "There was never any grand plan of 'Oh, maybe this will get us ratings.' . . . Anybody in cable has to be willing to open themselves up and share that with the audience. Otherwise you're just flat."
It's a safe bet that when she answers, "there was never any grand plan"--there was a grand plan. The lady doth protest too much.
Here's what TCG thinks happened. She could see that just being a bland centrist--left of center counts as "center" in NYC--wasn't going to get her much, as Paula Zahn and Connie Chung discovered in the same time slot. So she had to move one way or another: She could move right--which is occasionally permitted at CNN, viz. Lou Dobbs--or she could move left, seeking the big audiences being generated by Keith Olbermann and, also, Rachel Maddow, who has become something of a cable phenom. And so that's what she did. And the proof is on the tube every night now. Yes, she is still third in the ratings, but she is moving up some, and she is getting buzz. If nothing else, her speaking fees have just increased, and she is a sure bet to receive a bunch of honorary degrees.
Kurtz reports that after the election, her show will be dubbed, "Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull." Well that's good alliteration, I will give her slogan that much. But the real b.s. is the claim that there's no bias in Brown.
