Alma Dale Campbell Brown (born June 14, 1968) is the former head of global media partnerships at Meta and a former American television news reporter and anchorwoman. She served as co-anchor of the NBC news program Weekend Today from 2003 to 2007, and hosted the series Campbell Brown on CNN from 2008 to 2010. Brown won an Emmy Award as part of the NBC team reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Since 2013 she has been an education reform and school choice activist.
Early life and family
Campbell Brown was born Alma Dale Campbell Brown in Ferriday, Louisiana, the daughter of the former Louisiana Democratic State Senator and Secretary of State James H. Brown Jr., and Brown's first wife, Dale Campbell. Alma Dale was her maternal grandmother's name. Her parents divorced when she was young.
Brown was raised as a Roman Catholic, though her father is a Presbyterian. She has two sisters.
Brown grew up in Ferriday, Louisiana, and attended the Trinity Episcopal Day School. Her family was involved in hunting, politics, and cooking, "It was all about Cajun and tight-knit families and big parties," according to Brown.
She was expelled from the Madeira School for sneaking off campus to go to a party. Brown attended Louisiana State University for two years before graduating from Regis University. After graduation, she spent a year teaching English in Czechoslovakia. A 2003 New York Times article described her as "a tattooed former party girl and beach bum".
Journalism career
She began her career in local news reporting for KSNT-TV, the NBC affiliate in Topeka, Kansas, and then for WWBT-TV, the NBC affiliate in Richmond, Virginia, and also reported for WBAL-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, and WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. Brown joined NBC News in 1996. She was later assigned to The Pentagon and covered the war in Kosovo. Before Weekend Today, she was the White House correspondent for NBC News.
Presidential election coverage in 2000
During the 2000 U.S. presidential election, she covered George W. Bush, the Republican National Convention, and Republican party primary elections. She became the main substitute anchor for Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News.
In March 2006, Brown was named as one of five women who might replace Katie Couric when she left the Today Show. The position went to Meredith Vieira.
Move to CNN
Brown announced July 22, 2007, on Weekend Today, that she would be leaving NBC News after eleven years to devote time to her family and expected baby. CNN confirmed it had hired Brown, and that Brown would start work for CNN in February 2008 (originally November 2007), filling the spot previously held by Paula Zahn, who left the network. Brown began anchoring CNN Election Center, which ran from February through October 2008. The show was renamed Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull in October 2008, shortly before the election in order to ensure a smooth transition when the election was over. Roland Martin filled in as guest host in April and May 2009 while Brown took maternity leave; when she returned in June 2009, the show was again renamed this time simply to Campbell Brown.
Departure
In the face of low ratings, CNN released Brown from her contract. On May 18, 2010, Brown announced that she would be leaving CNN. She later told the Los Angeles Times that she had originally hoped that a straight news program like hers could compete successfully against the opinion-driven shows of her competitors, Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann. Olbermann responded by naming Brown as a runner-up in his daily "Worst Person In The World" segment.
Brown's last day at CNN was on July 21, 2010. Beginning on July 22, her 8:00 p.m. prime time slot was filled by a second hour of Rick Sanchez's Rick's List TV program.
Post-CNN journalism
After leaving CNN, Brown began writing opinion pieces for publications that included The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast and Slate. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol proposed that Brown run for Charles Schumer's Senate seat.
In January 2017, Facebook announced that Brown would be joining to lead the company's news partnerships team. Her title is head of global news partnerships. In 2018, The Australian newspaper reported that Brown, in a private meeting with Facebook publishing partners, told the partners that their business models would die in a hospice unless they worked with Facebook.