Many Americans harbor false notions about the ways in which several critical issues play out in European life, including how public debt and finance are linked to fiscal policy and the place of religion in society.
This is the opinion of award-winning NPR reporter Frank Browning, who is scheduled to deliver a free, public lecture Thursday (Sept. 29) at the University of Mississippi. His presentation, titled “Temples, Taxes and Toilets: Understanding Faith, Fiscal Policy and Public Health Across the Atlantic,” is set for 7 p.m. in the Joseph C. Bancroft Conference Room of the Croft Institute for International Studies.
In addition to the Croft Institute, the program’s co-sponsors are the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College and the Meek School of Journalism and New Media.
“Mr. Browning’s lecture is very topical, given the serious questions about public debt facing both the U.S. and Europe at present,” said Croft’s assistant director William Schenck. “Health care spending, taxation rates and the role of religion in public life are very controversial topics here at home, and I believe a clearer understanding of how these issues play out in Europe can help us frame our domestic conversation more constructively.”
Explaining why he believes people in this country often misinterpret certain political and social issues in European countries, Browning said, “All too many Americans, for example, seem to believe that health care in France or Holland – consistently evaluated as the world’s best systems – is directly controlled by a bureaucratic ‘single-payer’ system (but) it isn’t,” said Browning, who is based in Paris.
“On the other hand, the role of religion and religious symbols is far more complex in European life than Americans like to believe. Lastly, the cut of national resources given over to health care, retirement and transportation is, in fact, far lower in most European nations than in the U.S. Likewise, unemployment in many Nordic countries, where taxes are high, is well below that found in the U.S.”
Reporting for NPR, Browning provides news coverage of nations in the European Union, as well as cultural reporting and essays. He joined NPR’s national desk in 1983 and has covered everything from Neo-Nazis in the Midwest and ancient apple forests in Kazakhstan to the dilemmas of small tobacco farmers in Kentucky and the cultural contradictions facing African musicians in France.
With longtime NPR reporter Brenda Wilson, Browning coordinated and reported a special 16-part series on AIDS in black America. The series, which aired in 1990, won a DuPont-Columbia award and a Major Armstrong award the following year. The next year, he was honored with another Armstrong award for a five-part series on AIDS and sexuality in Brazil.
Throughout his career, Browning has worked in radio, television and print journalism. Stories and reporting have taken him all over the world, including Brazil, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Sweden and Switzerland.
Browning worked on three documentary projects for Italy’s RAI 3 channel: “AIDS: The San Francisco Model” (1990), “War Comes to Twin Peaks: Perceptions of the Gulf War in the Pacific Northwest” (1991) and “American Politics After 9/11″ (2002).
Before joining NPR, Browning was an editor and writer for Ramparts, Inquiry and Pacific News Service, all in San Francisco. He has worked as an independent journalist for such publications as The Washington Post, National Geographic, Playboy, Health, California and Gourmet.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors from the University of Michigan, where he was a Knight Fellow in 1985-86. Browning moved to France in 2001, and is the author of seven books, including “The American Way of Crime” (Putnam Publishing Group, 1980), “The Culture of Desire” (Vintage, 1994) and “Apples: Story of the Fruit of Temptation” (North Point Pr, 1998).
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