Special Edition: Stephen Brown — An audio appreciation

Brussels Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.4 • 204 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This special edition of the EU Confidential podcast reflects on the life and career of Stephen Brown, the POLITICO Europe editor in chief who died of a heart attack last month at the age of 57. Brown pursued an outstanding career as a foreign correspondent that took him from the tip of South America to the Arctic Circle. He then took a leap of faith to enjoy an extraordinary second act as he flourished like never before, helping to change the face of European journalism. But Brown was never self-important or pompous, and his self-deprecation and dry humor shine through in his own words and in the memories of friends and colleagues. The program offers a chance for POLITICO readers and EU Confidential listeners to learn more about the man who drove so much of the publication's journalism. POLITICO's EU editor, Andrew Gray, presents this audio appreciation. It features contributions from people who worked with Brown from Buenos Aires to Brussels and the voice of Brown himself, from public appearances and interviews over the years. Contributors include Juan Bustamante, Reuters video journalist in Buenos Aires; Paul Taylor, former European affairs editor at Reuters and now POLITICO columnist; Matthew Kaminski, editor in chief of POLITICO in the United States; and POLITICO Europe's Hans von der Burchard, Saim Saeed, Lili Bayer, Zoya Sheftalovich, Sarah Wheaton, James Randerson and Eddy Wax. The program was made by Cristina Gonzalez and Andrew Gray. It features music by Craig Winneker and Bjarke Smith-Meyer. Special thanks to Natasha Bernard, Camille Gijs, Eddy Wax and the Careers Service of the University of Cambridge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So for those of you who don't know what Politico is, it's got a silly name. It's a brand new political newspaper. We're based in Brussels, founded by the American Politico, which if any of you watch House of Cards, you may have seen something about it there. So we're basically political and policy news.
0:18.1	This is Stephen Brown, talking at a careers event for languages students at the
0:23.3	University of Cambridge in 2018. He was then the managing editor of political Europe and
0:30.4	later became editor-in-chief. In many ways, the talk is very typically Stephen Brown.
0:41.8	There's modesty, there's humour, there's self-deprecation,
0:45.8	like when he talks about Politico's unofficial recruitment policy.
0:49.7	We actually have in Politico, I don't know if you're going to have to say that in the lecture rooms,
0:54.9	but we have no arseholes rule, which we actually, I got in, but we try not in general material.
0:56.4	So beware.
1:02.6	But this is the voice of someone who'd had a big hand in redrawing the European media landscape. He was a key figure as political Europe went from scrappy start-up
1:07.3	to the dominant news organisation covering the European Union in just a few years.
1:15.3	As you may have read, Stephen died of a heart attack on the 18th of March this year at the age of 57.
1:23.9	His death was a huge shock and we're all thinking of his family above all.
1:29.3	For us, he was a great friend, mentor and boss, genuinely and hugely loved across the newsroom and far beyond.
1:39.3	In this special edition of EU Confidential, we want to give you a sense of the man who was the
1:46.0	driving force behind so much of Politico's journalism in Europe. We believe it's a story well
1:53.0	worth telling. It's the story of a man who enjoyed an extraordinary career as a foreign
1:58.6	correspondent that stretched from the tip of South America
2:01.6	to the Arctic Circle.
2:03.6	And it's the story of a man who then took a leap of faith and ended up enjoying an extraordinary
2:09.1	second act as he flourished like never before, helping to change the face of European journalism.
2:16.6	You'll hear from people who knew him and you'll hear the face of European journalism. You'll hear from people who knew him, and you'll hear the voice of Stephen himself,
	...

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