CNN’s Daryn Kagan departing to start ‘inspirational’ website

CNN anchor Daryn Kagan announced Thursday that she is leaving the cable news network to start a new Web venture she aims to make “an inspirational online community.”

Kagan, who will continue to anchor the morning news block “CNN Live Today” until Sept. 1, has been with CNN since 1994, when she was hired out of a local Phoenix station to be a CNN Sports anchor. She began anchoring news coverage in 1998.

In an interview, Kagan called her 12 years at CNN “amazing” but said, “It’s just time for the next chapter.”

CNN/U.S. President Jonathan Klein said he was sad to see her leave, adding: “Not only is Daryn one of the nicest people I have ever met, but one of the classiest.”

Her replacement has not yet been announced.

In November, Kagan is launching her own website, darynkagan.com, “based on the radical idea that the world is a good place,” she said.

The site, which will be supported by advertising, will feature print, audio and video stories about inspirational topics, along with information about ways to affect change in the world.

“My real vision is that it’s going to be a community,” she said, adding that she hopes people will contribute their own pieces to the site. “I think there is a hunger for people to belong to something like this.”

Kagan said the idea for the site came out of her passion for uplifting stories she’s done for CNN, including a recent piece about a quadriplegic radio host who wrote a book of letters for his newborn grandson.

“For me, it’s not turning my back on news,” she said. “It’s just an evolution of what I’ve been doing.”

For now, Kagan said, she’s launching the site on her own.

“I’m treating it like the Field of Dreams,” she said. “If I build it, they will come.”