Brand reported and anchored for NPR for thirteen years at various affiliates across the country:
KQED, San Francisco;
WBUR, Boston;
WBGO, Newark, and
WBFO, Buffalo. She served as
West Coast correspondent and occasional substitute host for
Morning Edition and
All Things Considered. In 2006, she began co-hosting the radio program
Day to Day with
Alex Chadwick, which broadcast from NPR West studios in Los Angeles. In 2010, Brand became host of the new daily
Southern California Public Radio program
The Madeleine Brand Show on the public radio station
KPCC, which aired between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Pacific Time. The show broadcast from the Mohn Broadcast Center in
Pasadena. The show was popular for its first 23 months, and was the station's most-listened-to in-house program (with the highest
Arbitron rankings), and won a number of radio journalism awards. However, the show came to an "abrupt end" after KPCC paired Brand with longtime ESPN sports reporter A Martínez in an attempt to attract Latino listeners and fulfill the requirements of a $6 million
Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant. The pairing of the two hosts, under the name
Brand & Martínez, debuted August 13, 2012, but lasted just four weeks and was a failure, in part because the two had met only twice before the program began. Brand left the station in September 2012 and was replaced by
Alex Cohen (the show was renamed
Take Two). Following her time at NPR, Brand was briefly at the Los Angeles
public television station
KCET as a special contributor to the fifth season of
SoCal Connected, hosted by
Val Zavala. In Summer 2013, Brand occasionally substituted for longtime broadcaster
Warren Olney IV on his show
To the Point on KPCC's rival KCRW. In September 2013, Brand moved to KCRW and began to develop
Press Play, which debuted in January 2014, becoming the first new daily program on KCRW since 2001.
Press Play competes against
Larry Mantle's
AirTalk on KPCC. ==Personal life==