Campbell Brown

It's understood in the newsroom: Air the Trump rallies live and uninterrupted. He may say something crazy; he often does, and it's always great television.

TV news has largely given Trump editorial control.

Trump doesn't force the networks to show his rallies live rather than do real reporting. Nor does he force anyone to accept his phone calls rather than demand that he do a face-to-face interview that would be a greater risk for him.

My friends in the TV news business are in a state of despair about Donald Trump, even as their bosses in the boardroom are giddy over what he's doing for their once sagging ratings.

Someone once told me I looked good in red, so I bought every piece of clothing in red and bright-red lipstick. I had huge hair, as big as I could tease it and spray it.

My second-grade teacher went around the class and asked everybody what they were going to be when they grew up. I said, 'I want to travel the world,' and he said, 'You'll be married and pregnant by 21, just like all the girls in this room.'

My mom was very much the product of a very paternalistic, deep-southern culture, but also a repressed feminist. Her way of being defiant was to raise us to be rebellious ourselves - basically, the opposite of who she had to be in her own life.

I've covered the White House and been yelled at by presidents.

I'm interested in full disclosure for people who give money to politicians. But I'm not a politician. I'm an advocate.

There's no reason why anyone's job should become untouchable for the rest of their life.

Sometimes, in the midst of a tragedy like the Newton massacre, we witness incredible acts of valor, tenderness, grace, and decency. We saw it from Sandy Hook Elementary School's teachers, students, and parents, as well as from their community and country. The outpouring of sympathy and help has been touching and, at times, inspiring.

I'm a mom, and my view of public education begins and ends with the fundamental question: Is this good for children?

You're not going to see me ever be partisan. I'll never take a position on a candidate or an issue.

Let's be clear about what Common Core is. It spells out what students should know at the end of each grade. The goal is to ensure that our students are sound in math and literacy and that our schools have some basic consistency nationwide. But the standards do not dictate a national curriculum, and teachers are not told how or what to teach.

When you have Candidate A saying the sky is blue, and Candidate B saying it's a cloudy day, I look outside and I see, well, it's a cloudy day. I should be able to tell my viewers, 'Candidate A is wrong, Candidate B is right,' and not have to say, 'Well, you decide.' Then it would be like I'm an idiot.

The 800-pound gorillas of TV news are gone. When I was the White House correspondent at NBC, and Tom Brokaw was anchor, the reporters were protected.

By resisting almost any change aimed at improving our public schools, teachers' unions have become a ripe target for reformers across the ideological spectrum.

It's better to be honest about your opinions than to pretend you don't have them.

I don't know if a government bailout will rescue America's auto industry, but I do know that if there is a bailout, it better come with a big, bright stop sign and lots of strings attached.

Any time you challenge a big powerful person or special interest, there's going to be blowback.

Bipartisanship is really tough to achieve when everyone on both sides is left with a bad, bad taste in their mouths.

This must be such a relief for the TV executives managing a business in decline, suffering from a thousand cuts from social media and other new platforms. Trump arrived on the scene as a kind of manna from hell.

Early on, even before he was the front-runner, TV news was giving Trump far more attention than other candidates and far more than he deserved.

I have been fortunate that publications like the 'New York Times' and 'The Wall Street Journal' have allowed me to share some of my opinions with a wider audience.

After a 15-year career in television news, sometimes spent biting my tongue in the name of objectivity and balance, I retired to raise our two small children.

If you live in the overlapping world of politics and media, as I am learning, anything less than full transparency can potentially do you in.

I myself have raised plenty of questions about Sarah Palin, much to the annoyance of the McCain campaign. But those questions have been about her qualifications and experience, never her appearance.

When Wolf Blitzer wears a not-so-great tie, how much e-mail do you think he gets? My point is, for women, unfortunately, appearance is part of the job.

Women get scrutinized based on appearance far more than men. And look, I speak from experience here. When I wear a bad outfit on the air, I get viewer e-mail complaining about it. A lot of e-mail. Seriously.

We are not yet a society free of sexism, and this will continue to be an issue for all women candidates.

Let's just start with the word 'diva.' It is obviously a sexist slight - a term that is only applied to women, almost always in a derogatory way. It's usually applied to women who are viewed as overly ambitious. It is applied to demanding women, to women who follow their own path.

It has seemed, at times, like American carmakers think car buyers are so blindly loyal that they will keep coming back - despite the sticker shock - for crummy cars that guzzle gas, fall apart too soon, and cost too much to repair.

I didn't get interested in education until I had kids.

I know people talk about poverty and other factors, but there is very little I can do to ensure that a child has a stable two-parent home. But what if we can give them a shot in the classroom with a stable, high-standards environment?

The thing that bothers me about journalism is the false equivalency we sometimes place on certain issues.

Common Core isn't a test, but for some people it is, because they don't like the testing piece of it.

To some people, Common Core means what it actually is, which is a set of standards. That's not necessarily most people. To other people, Common Core is a new curriculum that's been implemented at their school that they don't understand. It's applying new teaching tools.

Whenever someone says to me, 'Are you for or against Common Core,' the first question I ask is, 'What do you think Common Core is?' You will get a different answer from every single person. You will literally get a different answer.

I had a moment where I left journalism, and I started getting interested in this issue and writing about it, where I felt there was a right side and a wrong side around a lot of these issues relating to education.

It comes down to what your priorities are, and if public education is about kids, then every decision we make should be focused on the question of 'Is this good for a child?' And that should be the driving focus and the priority when we decide what our policies should be and what our laws should be.

People say, 'Are you going to be beating up one side or the other side?' It's everybody. It's the entire education establishment that is in power.

Lester is the Rock of Gibraltar. Nothing can rattle him. I am not. I was always flying off the handle about things. And the one person who could calm me down and make me realize that none of this silliness mattered was Lester Holt.

As the ratings go up, so does advertising revenue.

I was not so interested in night-after-night coverage of Michael Jackson's death or Britney Spears' latest breakdown - topics that were 'breaking news' at the time.

'Morning Joe' host Mika Brzezinski's personal life is a minefield. Her father is Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, and while one brother is an Obama appointee, the other advises Romney.

The government sets targets for increased four-year high school graduation rates as part of its agenda for improving Americans' health.