About William @WmBrangham
William Brangham is a correspondent and producer for PBS NewsHour in Washington, D.C. He joined the flagship PBS program in 2015, after spending two years with PBS NewsHour Weekend in New York City.
In his first three years, Brangham has done a range of award-winning reporting across the United States and internationally, covering everything from the severity of America’s opioid crisis, the integration of women into combat roles in the U.S. Marine Corps, to a profile of Ina Garten, the “Barefoot Contessa.”
Brangham’s reporting on the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015 was among the work cited when the NewsHour won a George Foster Peabody Award that year. The next year, he reported a six-part series on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, which won a series of major awards including an Emmy and the National Academies of Sciences Communication Award. In 2018, Brangham worked on an investigative series about sexual assault and retaliation in the U.S. Forest Service. The day after that series aired, the head of the Forest Service suddenly stepped down.
When he is not out reporting in the field, Brangham is a regular interviewer on the NewsHour, and he has occasionally anchored the weekday and Weekend broadcasts.
During his career, Brangham has also worked on video projects for The New York Times, ABC News, National Geographic and Frontline. Prior to joining the NewsHour, he was a producer and correspondent for Need to Know on PBS, and before that, for Bill Moyers Journal. Brangham worked on several Moyers' documentary series in the 1990s, and was a producer on the critically acclaimed Now with Bill Moyers in the early 2000s.
In 2014, he was an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Brangham lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and three children.
William’s Recent Stories
Nation Oct 12
How Gruden’s emails expose NFL’s regressive attitude, and what change should look likeOne of the National Football League’s most well-known head coaches — Jon Gruden of the Las Vegas Raiders — is out of a job after a series of highly offensive emails were publicly disclosed by The New York Times and…
Nation Oct 11
How Native Americans view Biden’s restoration of national monuments Trump shrankThe Biden administration recently restored the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Bears Ears National Monument just ahead of Indigenous Peoples Day. The White House said the move protects land sacred to Native…
Health Oct 07
Overwhelmed by COVID patients, Alaska’s health care workers also face harassmentNew COVID-19 cases continue to fall around the United States — down nearly 25% over the past two weeks, with deaths dropping by more than 10%. But there are still far too many losing their lives, especially in Alaska where…
Health Oct 06
American pharmacies face trial in Ohio over role in opioid crisisA key opioids trial — the first to go to federal court — began this week in Ohio. The trial focuses on questions of accountability and responsibility for the opioids crisis, which has been connected directly with the deaths of…
Nation Oct 05
Facebook whistleblower asks Congress to regulate tech giant’s influence on usersFacebook is under fire Tuesday following testimony by a former employee before a U.S. Senate committee. Frances Haugen alleged the company too frequently turns a blind eye to potential harm for the sake of profit. Facebook denied that in statements…
Health Oct 05
New book shows how failure to implement quick, accurate testing compounded COVID’s spreadThe United States has now passed yet another tragic pandemic milestone. COVID-19 has now claimed the lives of more than 700,000 Americans. William Brangham talks to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner and author of new book "Uncontrolled Spread:…
Nation Oct 04
What caused the Facebook outage and how it affected global users, businessesFacebook and its group of apps and social media platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram were down most of Monday. The outages come on the eve of another difficult congressional hearing for the social media giant. The cause of the outages…
Science Sep 30
Why discovery of DNA’s double helix was based on ‘rip-off’ of female scientist’s dataIt is the famous lightbulb-going-off story every school kid learns: How James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, cementing their place in scientific history. But as William Brangham explains, a new book titled "The Secret of Life"…
Health Sep 29
Vaccine mandates can become a ‘political battleground,’ former FDA commissioner saysYouTube on Wednesday announced it will remove videos that spread false information about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine and any other commonly used vaccines. Accounts associated with several prominent figures — such as Robert Kennedy Jr. —…
Health Sep 21
How COVID-19’s death toll and social impact compares to past U.S. pandemicsThe death toll from the COVID pandemic has put the U.S. at another tragic milestone — more than 675,000 Americans, overall, have died of COVID as of Monday. That number surpasses the number of lives lost to the 1918 flu.