EAVESDROP AS TWO TOP REPORTERS PARSE TODAY’S NEWS
NEWS-RECORD column
SMARTEN UP @ THE ADULT SCHOOL
June 18, 2020
Rose Bennett Gilbert
Long-time Maplewood Resident: Dan Barry, New York Times Journalist and author of five books.
David Brancaccio of South Orange: 10 million people get up to hear him on Public Media’s Marketplace Morning Report.
On any other day, you’d have to get up really early to keep up with veteran journalist David Brancaccio of South Orange. Senior editor of American Public Media’s Marketplace Morning Report, his day starts at 4 a.m.
On June 25, however, Brancaccio himself will catch up with another renowned journalist, Maplewood’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter and author Dan Barry of The New York Times. The twain will meet, virtually, at least, at 7:30 that evening. The event – the men have not met before -- has been arranged by the South Orange-Maplewood Adult School, and everyone is invited to eavesdrop on their conversation.
It won’t be small talk.
“We are living through possibly the three biggest stories of my career all at once,” Brancaccio points out: “The pandemic. Maybe a depression, and the social justice movement on the street.”
What Barry describes as a “conversation between two seasoned journalists” will not be an evening of op-ed opinions and prescriptions, Barry assures. “I don’t intend to opine. I am more of an observer, bearing witness. I try to be a storyteller – that’s how we process our existence, through story-telling.”
Indeed, Barry has already “processed” the existences of many other Americans: for l0 years, he wandered through the small towns and backwaters of all 50 of these united states, “avoiding the predictable…scrambling to keep up with the news in my own way.”
He filed enough features for The Times to fill a book, literally: “This Land: America, Lost and Found,” Barry’s fifth book, was published in 2018. That same year, he won the prestigious Story in the Public Square award from the Pell Center, which honors a storyteller whose work has significantly influenced the public dialogue.
Brancaccio is also no slouch when it comes to storytelling and winning awards for it. He holds a national Emmy for a public health story he covered in Kenya, a Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in TV political coverage, and the David Brower award for Environmental Coverage from the Sierra Club.
He, too, has written a book about his travels in America, only, as you might expect , from the viewpoint of economics. “Squandering Aimlessly,” subtitled “ My Adventures in the American Marketplace,” explored the soul of Americans as revealed in their attitude toward money: “I went around asking, ‘Tell me what you’d do if you suddenly received a big settlement, say, or a bank error in your favor.’ What you do with the surplus is what you are.” Hint: Brancaccio’s book title tells all.
It also reveals his trademark humor. Never mind that Marketplace boasts some l0 million listeners; during the lockdown, he’s been having to get up at 4 a.m. to broadcast from his basement. “I’m down here with the cat litter box,” Brancaccio confides. “It’s not uplifting. But working from home means I can have lunch with my wife (teacher and poet Mary Brancaccio, who has been tele-teaching four or five classes a day from their second floor). “That part is nice.”
Also nice and noteworthy: the Adult School is sharing profits from the Dan Barry/David Brancaccio conversation with the interfaith network that supports 20 Essex County food pantries. Tickets cost $5; register at www.somadultschool.org.
The event annually honors former Adult School trustee Robert U. Redpath and his lifelong interest in communications and language.