Indiana Broadcast History Archive

Joseph Angotti began his broadcast training at Indiana University and later worked his way up to Senior Vice President of NBC News, as well as Executive Producer of NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. When he left television news, he taught broadcast journalism at top university programs. Angotti is a member of the Indiana Broadcaster Hall of Fame.

National Emmy award-winning veteran Joe Angotti was born and raised in Gary, Indiana, where he worked at his dad’s bakery filling jelly doughnuts before delivering them to the steel mills. While at Indiana University, he studied under Professor Richard Yoakam. Angotti was the first student news director of WFIU-FM and earned the first graduate degree ever awarded at IU in radio and television.

After stints at Louisville’s WHAS-TV and Chicago’s WMAQ-TV, he was promoted to New York, where he was eventually named senior vice president of the NBC News Division and executive producer of NBC Nightly News. From 1993 to 1998, he taught broadcast journalism at the University of Miami School of Communication. In 1999, he was named professor and chair of the broadcast program at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He later was named visiting distinguished professor of communication at Monmouth University.

Joe Angotti won the Indiana University Media School Distinguished Alumni Award in 2015. He died in January 2026.

Indiana Broadcast Pioneers

February 2026