It was interesting enough that CNN booked axed anchor Daryn Kagan – ousted in 2006 when Jon Klein didn’t renew her contract – to let her plug her new book What’s Possible. More interesting, though, was when anchor Don Lemon, who theoretically replaced her, brought up the subject of her removal: “Let’s be honest, you thought that the worst thing that could happen to you was that CNN would not renew your contract.” Not so, says Kagan.
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Daryn Kagan, the CNN anchor whose contract Jon Klein opted not to renew in 2006, has found success as an inspirational video blogger. But the host of DarynKagan.com, who released her first book, What’s Possible, this week (news peg!), encountered one of the many roadblocks boldface names do when they try to build a web identity: Somebody already owned her.
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Ex-CNN anchor Daryn Kagan has remade herself into a sunshine-y news vlogger, telling inspiring stories all through the magic of web video. And now she’s got a book out, ’cause she’s all cross-platform and stuff.
But since when did books come with their own trailers?
Former CNN anchor and current web do-gooder Daryn Kagan has snagged her third foray into turning this world into a better place, and not one of self-destruction that she dutifully reported on TV for a dozen years. Beside running her heartfelt video blog and producing documentaries for PBS (Breaking the Curse debuts in June!), Daryn will also be writing a book based on her “unique brand of positive and hopeful news stories.”
It’s called What’s Possible! Creating Possibilities Beyond Life’s 5 Biggest Obstacles and “will,” according to the press release, “feature original stories and reports about people whose experiences and challenges have inspired and affected change in the world.” Or, as Daryn’s publicist Paul Schur tells it: Daryn is going to “Show the World What’s Possible!”
The lucky publisher? Meredith Books, part of Meredith Corp. (publisher of More and Better Homes and Gardens).
Who said old media is dead? Well, Daryn, probably, when she left TV.
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Former Fox News and current Daryn Kagan publicist Paul Schur has outdone himself this time around.
Half of you know Schur as the fella who’s placed the ex-CNN news anchor in every press outlet imaginable; the other half of you know him as the alleged source behind a number of Fox News item plants.
But today, Schur stands as the former, snagging a Washington Post Style section feature on his star client, who now hosts a feel good video blog.
Except he probably wasn’t aware of the craziness that was to follow.
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Exclusive
Carol Lin’s termination from CNN is not the “spend more time with her family” scenario CNN brass would like you to believe. As TVNewser first reported yesterday, Lin is leaving the network at the end of the year — but not voluntarily, we hear. As Variety hints at, Lin was asked to leave the anchor desk and transition to a national correspondent gig, but being a single mother (her husband passed away) of a toddler, it clearly wasn’t a position Lin could take.
And CNN president Jon Klein knew it. In fact, that’s why he offered it to her: to create a nice way of saying “get the hell out of here” while still maintaining a public image of fairness. In fact, he did that just a few months ago to 13-year CNN veteran Kelly Wallace.
A CNN insider tells us Lin and Wallce’s dismissals are part of a larger push by Klein to rid the network of women over 40. It was just a couple weeks ago that the network told 12-year CNN veteran Daryn Kagan it wouldn’t be renewing her contract. Three is a trend, right?
Meanwhile, not only is Klein making a push for younger talent, our well-placed insider tattles that the axings are also part of a push to “diminish the power of the Atlanta based anchors, and is trying to keep the focus on New York shows and talent, and getting rid of some established women is in Atlanta is one way he’s doing it.” Anderon Cooper, anyone?
Lin, meanwhile, will be sorely missed. We hear “she’s a true fighter with a great spirit, and probably the hardest working anchor in Atlanta. She is the one person who will take a challenge, like not being well liked by the new president, and work on every level to overcome it.”
For 12 years of her TV career, former CNN anchor Daryn Kagan delivered news about wars in the Middle East, presidential elections, natural disasters, gunmen, missing children, white collar crime, and Israeli conflicts.
And today? Today she is, ahem, chronicling love stories.
We won’t prematurely call ousted CNN daytime anchor Daryn Kagan’s online venture a success – because we just hate eating our words – but let’s call her PR machine a success. With the help of Fox News publicity veteran Paul Schur, Daryn has been racking up the headlines. She’s landed on Michael Starr’s radar for boosting book sales of “donated a kidney to her husband” author Joan Saltzman (from 100,000 to 646 on Amazon.com) to scoring a respectable heap of traffic in her first week online. And that’s after mentions from U.S. News & World Reports’ Paul Bedard, the Daily News’ Richard Huff, UPI syndication, and, of course, items right here on Jossip.
Clearly, MSNBC refugee Ashleigh Banfield hired the wrong PR guru to keep her name alive.
• Ousting of LAT’s older publisher and editor seems the perfect time for incoming publisher David Hiller to pen an Op-Ed piece on Donald Rumsfeld.
• Keith Olbermann viewership up on MSNBC, YouTube.
• CNN didn’t re-air Bill Maher’s Larry King Live outing because legal is a bunch of bitches.
• Women’s Wear expands on the information we already told you about last week about GQ’s Men of the Year: Looks like Leo DiCaprio also makes the list.
• Gannett joins the Tribune bid gang bang.
• Daryn Kagan sought inspiration, created vlog, avoided religion debate.
• Anderson Cooper visit to university results in gay boys oohing and typical college student newspaper article.
Oh happy day! Ever since our excitement began brewing in August over now-former CNN daytime anchor Daryn Kagan’s web endeavors, we’ve been refreshing DarynKagan.com hoping November 13 would come a little sooner. No luck there, but finally the calendar has caught up with our commotion, and her “feel good about life” site has launched. It’s only Day One, so we’re not sure entirely what to expect in the days and weeks to come, but her first video post for the site – which carries the tagline “Show the world what’s possible!” and a color scheme that just says “Smile, sunshine!” – is about a double amputee gentleman who’s going to become the first documented fella with no legs to complete a triathlon. Moving and emotional stuff, here — and certainly a departure from covering wildfires in Southern California, Natalie Holloway’s disappearance, and endless reasons to slit one’s wrists that CNN’s coverage offered. Now it’s just a wait-and-see game to see if exiting Seventeen editor Atoosa Rubenstein can accomplish the same uplifting feats when she hits the web.
With the launch of DarynKagan.com just 12 days away, nobody is more excited than we. Well, perhaps except for Daryn Kagan hereslf and a good portion of Oprah’s viewership. The now ex-CNN daytime anchor is gearing up for the launch of her inspirational women’s site — and with it comes news that she didn’t step down from her post voluntarily, as was alluded to by the network. Rather, she was told in January that her contract would not be renewed, though the announcement came without an explanation. Cue Daryn’s farewell note, which thanked those who hired her, but didn’t utter a word about her current superiors. Seems like Paula Zahn may be the newest inductee, after Daryn, to the I Hate Jon Klein Club.
Perhaps we could use fewer talking heads, but really, isn’t this online space clogged enough? Somehow we’re gonna have to make room for Daryn Kagan, the 12-year CNN vet who currently hosts CNN Live Today from 10am-noon. We’ve spent many a morning with her – as well as NY1’s Roger Clark, the go-getter general assignment reporter who this morning showed us the benefits, and risks, of palates – so we’ll be sad to see her leave the airwaves on the first of September. But, as TVNewser first reported, she’ll soon pop up on the Interwebs (Nov. 13, in fact) at DarynKagan.com, the self-described “inspirational, online community dedicated to the radical idea that the world is a good place.” We have it on good authority that, no, this is not a DrPhil.com offshoot.
But why leave a cushy, coveted gig to start a frickin’ website that any 12-year-old could do? The Washington Post has a theory:
Her [farewell] note credited the CNN executives who hired her 12 years ago, but said nothing about her current bosses.
Aw, not getting along with Jonathan Klein? She wouldn’t be the first. After the jump, Daryn’s full goodbye letter.
CNN’s Kagan Trades Anchor Chair For a Soapbox on the World Wide Web [WaPo]
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