Frank Bruni discusses journalistic adventures

Journalism has been the key to adventure for Frank Bruni.

He has covered the Persian Gulf War, visited the Bush family at their home and critiqued some of New York’s finest restaurants.

On Friday, The New York Times Magazine writer returned to UNC for the first time in 24 years discuss his journeys.

“Whenever anybody asked me ‘Why are you going into journalism?’ I would say, ‘Because it seems to me like it would be a great passport to a lot of different kinds of adventures,’?” he told a crowd of about 70 in Carroll Hall.

Since then, he said every step in his career has been a new adventure.

“I thought I was using that phrase as just sort of a default mantra that meant nothing, but it was actually a strategy and road map,” said the 1986 graduate, who wrote for The Daily Tar Heel as a student. “I have had adventures through journalism in number and of a kind that I never imagined.”

His first adventure came when he was sent by the Detroit Free Press to Saudi Arabia to write heartfelt stories about soldiers and their families at home. He soon found himself in the middle of the Persian Gulf War and was given a combat assignment in March 1991 because he had been in the country longer than other journalists.

“I had no real desire to see bloodshed or cover a war, but I felt it would be almost a betrayal to my news organization if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity,” Bruni said.

From the deserts of the Middle East, Bruni said he went on to more glamorous stories, which led him to dinners in London with actress Vanessa Redgrave, a visit to the Bush Compound in Kennebunkport, Maine and the Vatican.
While working in Rome, Bruni was asked by The New York Times to become a restaurant critic.

“I was utterly shocked by it,” he said. “But I thought, ‘If you’re going to take a chance on me, sure, I’ll take a chance on it.’?”

Bruni said restaurant critiquing was an entirely new adventure that made him more of an undercover CIA agent than journalist.

“When you’re a restaurant critic, you’re also kind of a CIA operative,” he said before giving anecdotes about dining under the name of Ben Stiller. “You’re trying to do what you do without being noticed and detected by the restaurant.”

Emma He, a junior environmental studies major, said she was inspired by the speech and intends to look at journalism courses.

“The passport for different adventures — that’s something very interesting to me,” she said.

At the end of his speech, Bruni provided a silver lining to the dark times of journalism, saying journalism is not a dying art.

“You may not end up in a career that looks anything like mine or the journalistic careers of people my age,” he said.

“But I think you’re going to end up with something meaningful because there’s never not going to be a market for information.”

Katie Cunningham, a journalism major, said she was reassured by these words.

“He’s not worried about the dying art like everyone’s talking about,” she said, “because there’s always going to be a need for information; there’s always going to be a need for people to laugh and for people to cry.”

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.