Jeffrey Brown (born 1956)[1] is an American journalist, who is a senior correspondent for the PBS NewsHour.[2] His reports focus on arts and literature, and he has interviewed numerous writers, poets, and musicians. Brown has worked most of his professional career at PBS and has written a poetry collection called The News.
Early life and education
Brown was born in 1956 to Morton Brown and Mirriam "Micki" Brown (née Decter).[1][3] He has four siblings, and grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts.[3][4] He graduated from high school in 1974.[5]
While studying at Columbia, Brown met television executive Fred W. Friendly, who worked as a professor at the university.[6] After he graduated, Brown became Friendly's teaching assistant and a producer for the Columbia University Seminars on Media & Society, a television production company directed by Friendly.[8] For a few years, Brown helped produce and write the seminars that were aired on public television about, among other things, ethics, law, foreign policy, and the Constitution.[9]
Thereafter, in 1988, Brown joined the PBS NewsHour, which was at that time called The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.[10] He was hired as an off-camera economics reporter, and was initially based in New York City, but moved to Washington, D.C. eight years later.[10][11] At first, Brown worked as a reporter and a producer, before being promoted to the position of senior producer for national affairs.[12] He became an on-camera correspondent in 1998, covering both general events and arts.[13]
Brown was named the NewsHour's arts correspondent, when that position was created, in March 2002.[9] Brown was promoted to senior correspondent three years later.[10] In December 2008, the NewsHour launched a blog called "Art Beat", covering arts and culture, which is written by Brown and other NewsHour reporters.[14]
Brown became part of the anchor team, when The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer was renamed PBS NewsHour in December 2009; Jim Lehrer was joined every broadcast by either Judy Woodruff, Gwen Ifill, or Brown.[15] After Lehrer stepped down in June 2012, the program was hosted by Woodruff, Ifill, Brown, Ray Suarez, and Margaret Warner on a rotating basis.[16] That situation ended in September 2013, when Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff became the sole anchors. Simultaneously, Brown was named "chief correspondent for arts, culture, and society".[17]
Between September 2012 and May 2014, Brown presented the series "Where Poetry Lives" on the NewsHour together with Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey.[18] They travelled through the US to report on societal issues through the lens of poetry.[19] In 2014, Brown started presenting the NewsHour series "Culture at Risk" about threatened heritage in the United States and abroad.[20] For that series, he has reported from numerous countries, including Myanmar, Peru, Mali, Nepal (after the April 2015 earthquake), Cuba, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, and South Africa.[21] When the PBS NewsHour launched a monthly book club in collaboration with The New York Times called "Now Read This" in 2018, Brown became its host, interviewing the writers.[22]
Besides covering arts, culture, and society, Brown has during his years as an arts correspondent for the NewsHour also occasionally reported on other subjects including science and politics.[10] For example, he co-anchored coverage of President Obama's second inauguration, and has participated in election night coverage during the 2008, 2012, and 2016 presidential elections.[23][24][25][26]
Brown has also released a poetry collection called The News, that contains 45 poems about reporting on television, things he encountered while reporting, and personal events in his life.[27][28] It was published by Copper Canyon Press in May 2015, and has a foreword written by poet Robert Pinsky.[1] Elizabeth Lund wrote the following about the collection in a review in The Washington Post: "[Brown] knows how to tell a story, and The News does a wonderful job of balancing the language of journalism and the power of poetry."[29]
Accolades
Brown has won a number of awards, including a News & Documentary Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and multiple CINE Golden Eagle Awards. The Emmy was awarded in the category "Outstanding Background/Analysis of a Single Current Story - (Segments)" to a segment about an antitrust case against Microsoft in 1999 and the Peabody Award to a segment about the unemployment rate in 2003. Brown produced both segments.[30][31]
In 2002, Brown won a CINE Golden Eagle Award for his arts coverage on the NewsHour.[32] In the following years, a number of segments, of which Brown he was the correspondent, won Golden Eagles including "Intelligent Design v. Evolution" (2005), "Doubt" (2005), "Blues Master: B.B. King" (2006), "Death is on Hold/Connecting with Kids" (2007), "Haitian Artists Create Poetry Amid Rubble" (2011), and "Musical Legend Herbie Hancock" (2011).[33][34][35][36]
Personal life
Brown is married to Paula Crawford, an artist, professor, and author.[9] They met while they were both studying at UC Berkeley, and have two children. Brown lives in Arlington, Virginia.[13]
