Brian Vines's guest appearances

Brian Vines

the Sharp End Podcast

Twenty Summers

From Day One: How Brooklyn Entrepreneurs Got Their Start

This Caregiver Life®

Ken Halsted's Podcast

Mike Flanagan

Jacqueline Woodson

Isaac Mizrahi

Damon Young

Kris Delmhorst

Andrew Sullivan

Adam Gopnik

Rion Amilcar Scott

Claudia Rankine

Junot Diaz

Rebecca Makkai

Jodi Kantor

Nicole Atkins

Barney Frank

Lydia Kiesling

OwlTail

Brian Vines is a Chicagoan by birth and a New Yorker by choice. After completing the Masters Program in Broadcast Journalism at Boston University’s College of Communication he fetched coffee for some of the most respected journalists and news figures in the world during his tenure at CNN. After a stint in political communications Brian fell in love with his own reflection and reported for here! networks, NYC-TV, Brooklyn Independent Media, the internationally syndicated VJIAM show, and Broad Band Network3 among others. In addition to reporting, show running and producing Brian is also a skilled host and moderator of live events on topics ranging from contemporary memoir to police brutality. A dedicated cyclist, NPR subscriber, and podcast enthusiast, Brian can be spotted balling-on-a-budget, fighting the urge to binge watch and answering questions about his hair.

Hello Neighbor: Climate Migrants & Community Journalism with Brian Vines

“The underserved community, the overserved community–we meet them where they live,” says TV journalist Brian Vines about the variety of people he meets on his beat: the borough of Brooklyn. He’s the host of BRIC TV’s Going In With Brian Vines, a magazine-style show that takes viewers into the streets to hear Brooklynites talk about such topics as gentrification, institutional racism, and the tech boom. Along with launching his own show, Vines plays many roles at Emmy-winning BRIC TV, including senior correspondent and host of BK Live and the #BHeard Town Hall series. All told, BRIC is the city’s largest presenter of free cultural programming. Vines sat down with us for our podcast to talk about his current work, but also his earliest days in journalism and storytelling. “My grandmother was blind, so when I was a kid I would do everything with my grandmother,” Vines says. “She was my life–and I was her eyes from the time I was a little boy. We would watch TV together, and my grandmother loved the news and soap operas. She taught me how to watch, because if someone was in the news, she was listening to the story, but she asked me what pictures they were showing, so she was creating a news producer without me even knowing it.” To hear our podcast, click on logo above, or on button at bottom Vines, from Chicago, earned his bachelor’s degree in international relations from Knox College in Illinois, but found himself drawn to journalism. “I won a fellowship my sophomore year and I did a media study,” he says. After spending a summer in New York City working with a professor of TV news at New York University, he was hooked. “I then applied to graduate school for journalism,” earning his masters degree from Boston University before moving back to New York. While Vines has now lived and worked in Brooklyn for well over a decade, it wasn’t always his first choice. “I wanted to move to Harlem. My boyfriend at the time wanted to move to Brooklyn. We flipped a coin, saw a place in Harlem, saw a place in Brooklyn and Brooklyn won. It was the best thing that ever happened,” he says. “Brooklyn has completely embraced me. I feel so at home here. When I moved to Bed-Stuy, I called my parents and said, ‘This is it. It’s just like home.’ There’s old people, there’s dogs, there’s kids, there’s messy people, there’s every other cousin. I feel so comfortable and I love it here. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” Embracing a community is a large part of what Going In With Brian Vines is all about. The show, he says, “was about this idea of going inside issues, going inside people’s worlds where it can be sort of immersive and also thinking of new ideas.” While he feels comfortable working in a studio with a parade of personalities passing through, the Going In show is on a mission to “get into the stream,” he says. A show about community in Brooklyn is naturally going to be talking about gentrification. Vines is no stranger to the topic. “I’m about 16 years in now. I do see that change. I remember being a youngster when I was first here in Brooklyn and I was in Williamsburg with all of my friends,” Vines recalls. “We were one of the early waves when you could only rent from old Italian families or Hasidic landlords, and now there are these spaceships that have landed right next to the old, horrible architecture that was there,” he says. Borrowing a line from Ru Paul to describe the community’s changes, “It’s like if you went to your class reunion and your best friend had gender-reassignment surgery. You still know all about them, but it’s completely different at the same time. And that’s what it feels like sometimes walking around this place.” Even with the tension and constant change, Vines sees the best in Brooklyn. “I’m from the Midwest. I know what it’s like to be nice and to get along. But I’m also from Chicago,” he says. “It’s the mix that happens in Brooklyn. We have the tension, we have the creativity. There are lots of things in flux right now. The best of what’s happening in this country is happening in Brooklyn.”–By Kora Feder  

“The underserved community, the overserved community–we meet them where they live,” says TV journalist Brian Vines about the variety of people he meets on his beat: the borough of Brooklyn. He’s the host of <a href="https://thebridgebk.com/bric-tv-brooklyn-new-cultural-voice/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">BRIC TV’</a>s Going In With Brian Vines, a magazine-style show that takes viewers into the streets to hear Brooklynites talk about such topics as gentrification, institutional racism, and the tech boom. Along with launching his own show, Vines plays many roles at Emmy-winning BRIC TV, including senior correspondent and host of <a href="https://www.bricartsmedia.org/tv-shows-videos/bk-live" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">BK Live</a> and the <a href="https://www.bricartsmedia.org/tv-shows-videos/bheard-town-hall" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">#BHeard Town Hall</a> series. All told, BRIC is the city’s largest presenter of free cultural programming. Vines sat down with us for our podcast to talk about his current work, but also his earliest days in journalism and storytelling. “My grandmother was blind, so when I was a kid I would do everything with my grandmother,” Vines says. “She was my life–and I was her eyes from the time I was a little boy. We would watch TV together, and my grandmother loved the news and soap operas. She taught me how to watch, because if someone was in the news, she was listening to the story, but she asked me what pictures they were showing, so she was creating a news producer without me even knowing it.” <a href="http://media.blubrry.com/fromdayone/content.blubrry.com/fromdayone/FD1_2018_05_18_Brian_Vines.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>To hear our podcast, click on logo above, or on button at bottom Vines, from Chicago, earned his bachelor’s degree in international relations from Knox College in Illinois, but found himself drawn to journalism. “I won a fellowship my sophomore year and I did a media study,” he says. After spending a summer in New York City working with a professor of TV news at New York University, he was hooked. “I then applied to graduate school for journalism,” earning his masters degree from Boston University before moving back to New York. While Vines has now lived and worked in Brooklyn for well over a decade, it wasn’t always his first choice. “I wanted to move to Harlem. My boyfriend at the time wanted to move to Brooklyn. We flipped a coin, saw a place in Harlem, saw a place in Brooklyn and Brooklyn won. It was the best thing that ever happened,” he says. “Brooklyn has completely embraced me. I feel so at home here. When I moved to Bed-Stuy, I called my parents and said, ‘This is it. It’s just like home.’ There’s old people, there’s dogs, there’s kids, there’s messy people, there’s every other cousin. I feel so comfortable and I love it here. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” Embracing a community is a large part of what Going In With Brian Vines is all about. The show, he says, “was about this idea of going inside issues, going inside people’s worlds where it can be sort of immersive and also thinking of new ideas.” While he feels comfortable working in a studio with a parade of personalities passing through, the Going In show is on a mission to “get into the stream,” he says. A show about community in Brooklyn is naturally going to be talking about gentrification. Vines is no stranger to the topic. “I’m about 16 years in now. I do see that change. I remember being a youngster when I was first here in Brooklyn and I was in Williamsburg with all of my friends,” Vines recalls. “We were one of the early waves when you could only rent from old Italian families or Hasidic landlords, and now there are these spaceships that have landed right next to the old, horrible architecture that was there,” he says. Borrowing a line from Ru Paul to describe the community’s changes, “It’s like if you went to your class reunion and your best friend had gender-reassignment surgery. You still know all about them, but it’s completely different at the same time. And that’s what it feels like sometimes walking around this place.” Even with the tension and constant change, Vines sees the best in Brooklyn. “I’m from the Midwest. I know what it’s like to be nice and to get along. But I’m also from Chicago,” he says. “It’s the mix that happens in Brooklyn. We have the tension, we have the creativity. There are lots of things in flux right now. The best of what’s happening in this country is happening in Brooklyn.”–By Kora Feder

Brian Vines, founder and host, ‘Going In With Brian Vines’