When David Brancaccio ’82 interviewed 83 year-old Kurt Vonnegut in October 2005 on the PBS show NOW, which he hosts, the legendary author began by bemoaning the “mess of the world.” He suggested that it was too late to fix the earth’s problems. To Brancaccio’s surprise, however, Vonnegut’s manner suggested a unique contentment.
“He had this bounce in his step and an interest in other people,” Brancaccio said. “I had to ask, ‘if the world is so messed up, how do you stay happy?’”
Brancaccio animatedly recalled Vonnegut’s response.
“He said you have to join a gang,” he explained. “A group of people that believe things can be done to make the world a better place.”
If one belief seems to guide Brancaccio’s extensive career in radio and television, it is that such people exist and ought to be heard from. After ten years as the host of Marketplace on NPR, Brancaccio recently succeeded Bill Moyers to become host and senior editor of NOW, a hard-hitting news program that aims to cover stories ignored by many major media outlets.
“We’re out there trying to cover stories that fit under one guiding principle: there are people out there who are trying to make the world a better place,” Brancaccio said.
According to Brancaccio, the secret to success comes from something he discovered in his experiences at Wesleyan: people can gain power by thinking about the bigger picture.
“Just about everybody I ever hung out with at Wesleyan thought that it’s not good enough to go out and make money,” Brancaccio said. “Make a mark, but it can’t be just to accrue money for yourself.”
A History and African Studies major, Brancaccio laughed when he recalled how some find it hard to draw a parallel between what he does now and his liberal arts education at the University.
“First, if you can write a good paper, if you can think clearly, if you know how to investigate stuff, you can do well at almost anything,” Brancaccio said.
More specifically, he said that NOW focuses on areas of the developing world in large part because of his background in African Studies and History and his experiences abroad. He studied in Madagascar for a year during high school and in Ghana for half a year as part of a study abroad program at Wesleyan. In the past, NOW broadcasted a special program on the history of U.S. AIDS policy in the United States and Africa.
“There you can clearly see echoes of my Wesleyan education,” he said.
It is difficult to believe that Brancaccio’s road to success was anything but smooth. Sure enough, though, he was denied every radio job he applied for out of college. When he got a job at a public radio station in San Francisco after graduate school, he was even told to go by a “less ethnic” name on the air.
It was only after taking extraordinary initiative and single-handedly setting up the London bureau of Marketplace that Brancaccio was able to become host of the radio show—something he says would have otherwise taken 15 years of “being nice to the people at NPR.”
Despite the fallbacks Brancaccio has weathered and the substantial risks he has taken, his advice for soon-to-be-graduates is straightforward.
“Don’t drink to excess, shower occasionally, show up to work on time and learn Mandarin,” Brancaccio joked, adding, “But really, learn a language. You need an international perspective.”
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