Aaron Brown, who was removed from CNN to make room for Anderson Cooper in 2005, quietly ran out the remainder of his contract behind the scenes. Now that his tenure there is up, he's moving to PBS, and he gave New York his exit interview, where they asked: "Do you have psychic scars from CNN?"

Replied Brown: "Mostly I laugh about it. In my time there, they paid me to go away, they paid Connie Chung probably a lot to go away, they paid Paula Zahn to go away."

Funny, because Greta Van Susteren, who also left CNN, had an entirely different experience. She, in essence, paid them.

I had entirely different departure …It is as though I paid CNN to let me go because when I first went to Fox in 2001/2002, I went for less money than CNN was then offering me to stay and had to do some behind the scenes - I went all the way to then Chairman of AOL/Time Warner to get myself out of the contract with CNN early.

(one other tidbit…they tried to “buy” my silence with a “non disparagement clause” but I refused to sign away my First Amendment for a “deal.”)

If I were a shareholder in TimeWarner, I would be furious at the way they (CNN) throw money away….and not all of us are for sale. Another example is the millions they spend on promo and publicity and the network still is not number one….Fox News Channel is. Want another example? when I saw the network President last fall I teased him about all the money they were spending on promo/publicity and still not number one — ok, maybe it was a bit of a jab - and do you know what he said? “I don’t care, it’s not my money.” OUCH!! Everyone within ear shot must have fallen over… The old adage “money doesn’t buy everything” is so true, isn’t it?

(and let me brag about our ON THE RECORD staff ….there are only about 12 of them…and the President of CNN told me last fall in that same conversation that the 10pm staff at CNN was 57 (I have recently been told it has exploded to 75?? is that true???) ….57?? 75??? what do they do???? they must fall all over each other!! and guess what? our 12 staff beats their 57 staff in total viewers..and I would hate to make that payroll!! [Greta Wire]