Hello there- another fun treat today- an interview with multi-talented
Josh Brogadir, a sports and news reporter/anchor at WCVB, Channel 5 in Boston. Previously, he worked as a sports anchor at Comcast SportsNet New England, and as a reporter at New England Cable News (NECN).
Prior to his reporting years, he was a two-way bilingual (Spanish) teacher and football coach at Walsh Middle School in Framingham. Josh grew up in Woodbridge, CT and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Josh is also a voiceover artist and actor, with 20 films, four TV/web series, two plays, several commercials, and 25 audiobooks to his credit. He and his wife Becca have two great kids: Sophie, age 9, and Nathan, age 6.
His most recent audiobook is
Terminated: The Tucker Mysteries, Book 1, by
Ray Daniel.
Get it here! You may recognize Ray's name, as he has appeared in
an interview here as well.
So let's find out more about Josh, the man who has interviewed the talented and famous!
Q. You have quite an impressive resume in television, movies, and more. When did you realize this was going to be your path?A. Thanks for the compliment, Dale. And for the opportunity to respond to these questions. I have always wanted to use my voice to tell stories, specifically with sports - but also news and more recently, narrating books. I used to do play by play of family badminton games in the backyard as a kid; eventually graduating to announcing high school sports; and later beginning as a TV news reporter at a small station in Grand Junction, Colorado. Talking and telling stories is a passion and a profession.
Q. You seem at the top of your game, a major success. So how do you work to improve what you do?A. I always strive to get better by practicing my craft. With voiceover, I am always trying out new accents and dialects on family and friends; with news and sports reporting, I review my work several times a week to try to pick up on small nuances. With acting, I observe and try to emulate. There’s always much room to improve - for all of us.
Q. What's your proudest professional achievement?A. I’d have to say the satisfaction of watching students and co-workers I’ve mentored reach their own levels of professional success. Through the years, we’ve stayed in touch or they’ve reached back out to me to tell me about their careers in journalism, law, public relations, and many others. It’s the feeling of a proud professional “parent” when one of your students succeeds.
Q. How about your best day ever as an broadcaster/announcer/interviewer?A. I’d have to place Super Bowl 49 at the top of my list. The week in Phoenix was incredible; and then Malcolm Butler’s interception to seal the win for the Patriots on the world’s biggest stage was a story that was exciting to talk about - and still is.
Q. What's the hardest thing about what you do?A. In terms of news and sports, our greatest challenge is consistently convincing people to tell their stories on camera. I always say my job is at least 50 percent sales. Many people, understandably, don’t have much interest in divulging unflattering moments. But they are often the most compelling. In terms of voice work and acting, the jobs are extremely competitive. Even when it seems you nailed an audition, you often don’t get the role or the gig. And so you work harder for the next one.
Q. Since you do so much, what job do you prefer to do on any day, given a choice?A. That’s the beauty of my professional life, at this moment. I have quite a bit of built-in flexibility. And I love it all. Perhaps my favorite work of all is live reporting on sports, whether it be play by play of a sporting event or analyzing a game or achievement of a student athlete. But I’m glad I don’t do that every day. I also like time spent in my recording studio narrating a great book.
Q. Someone comes to you with the dream job- what is it?A. Five different jobs in five different days
1. Play by play for college hoops on a Monday.
2. Narrating compelling characters on a Tuesday
3. Playing a creepy villain in a movie on a Wednesday
4. Reporting live from the Patriots game at Gillette Stadium on a Thursday night
5. Flying in a helicopter while reporting live over a building collapse or Friday afternoon traffic jam.
Q. Any plans to write your own book?A. I wrote a children’s book that is unpublished. It is loosely based on my daughter’s nursery school days. I have a few others started - fiction and non-fiction - but nothing finished.
Q. You also narrate a lot of books for Audible.com. What makes for a book you'd love to narrate?A. The writing is rich and detailed and evocative; the characters are complex and intricate and larger than life. There are people of all ages from all regions of the world. It is a Mystery or thriller or coming of age drama that holds your attention from cover to cover.
Q. What can authors do to improve their chances of finding a great narrator for their audiobooks?A. They can write compelling characters that have secrets that are revealed at the end of a novel; they can write non-fiction books that hold the reader’s attention, not just provide information.
Q. What do you look for in reading material? Or favorite books/favorite authors/recent great reads.A. I read everything; from headlines in The NY Times and Boston Globe every morning, to John Irving novels that are comical and have vibrant characters, to sports stories about professional athletes. A recent great read is the novel
Terminated, the first of the Tucker series by Ray Daniel. It’s the book I’m currently narrating. Another audiobook I’d highly recommend is
The Career Manifesto by Mike Steib. It’s helping me organize my professional life and set goals for the future.
Q. You've been on TV and in films. What's fun about that? What's not?A. It’s a lot of fun being on camera. You can really show your personality and every day is a performance. It didn’t take me long to feel comfortable and now that I do, it makes it easier. I hope to do more film in the future. The not as much fun is mostly the extreme cold as a reporter, the long days on movie sets, especially when you are an extra. But the fun far outweighs the not as fun.
Q. Although you've interviewed and hung out with celebrities, do you get the star treatment from time to time?A. The star treatment for me is mostly getting to interact with viewers; we sometimes sign autographs for kids and that’s fun. And when I get to host or emcee events, the VIP treatment is appreciated. Having a principal role in the movie, Patriots Day, was really fun. Having my own trailer and working alongside John Goodman was an acting highlight, so far.
Q. What's the question you get asked the most/hate or love the most? A. The question I get most often is who’s the most famous person I’ve interviewed (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Tom Brady) and it’s not a question I hate. The comment I like least when working in news is “must be a slow news day” when we cover something a person doesn’t think is or doesn’t want to be worthy of coverage. The questions I love the most are about my kids and the ability to tell my life story of how I got into this line of work.
Q. What's the one question you wish you'd get asked more? What would you love to talk about on-air?A. The one question I wish I got asked more is the chance to explain why news is not fake. It’s a frustrating cycle we are currently in, feeling the attack of viewers thinking what we do is not real.
I would love to have more of a discussion of sports on air, a commentary show on TV. It would be more fun to give my opinion as is done elsewhere. Most of what we do is report the news of sports.
Q. Any wild stories from your career (that you can tell)?A. Yes, the two that are top of mind are the two times I’ve been assaulted while reporting. Neither of which I got hurt, fortunately. The first was an angry and grieving relative who shoved me at the scene of a crash that claimed the life of his young nephew. The second was an inebriated college-age man who thought it would be fun to mention the unmentionable while I was doing a live report. He then tried to grab my microphone and I pushed him out of the way. A bit of a “party” ensued with some shouting, but all turned out ok in the end.
Q. What fun fact do we not know about you?A. I am a trumpet player, mostly at this point jamming in small shows and open mic nights with friends. But I have played most of my life. I also can touch my tongue to my nose. A party trick.
Q. What's the next step in your professional world?A. Great question - I’m hoping to raise my profile in the audiobook universe. To narrate for a large publishing company for an author I admire is a dream. On the acting end, I’d like to be in a feature film somewhere overseas. In my journalism career, I’d really like the opportunity to do some more anchoring, both sports and news.
Contact Josh:
Tw: @JoshBrogadirTV
www.joshbrogadir.com
