Tom Brokaw

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Thomas John Brokaw (born February 6, 1940) is an American television journalist and author, best known for being the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 22 years (1982–2004).

He is the only person to have hosted all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press.

He now serves as a Special Correspondent for NBC News and works on documentaries for other outlets.Along with competitors Peter Jennings at ABC News and Dan Rather at CBS News, Brokaw was one of the "Big Three" news anchors in the U.S. during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

The three hosted their networks' flagship nightly news programs for over 20 years, and all three started and retired (or died, in Jennings's case) within a year of each other.Brokaw has also written several books on American history and society in the 20th century.

He is the author of The Greatest Generation (1998) and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors.

Early life

Brokaw was born in Webster, South Dakota, the son of Eugenia "Jean" (née Conley; 1917–2011), who worked in sales and as a post-office clerk, and Anthony Orville "Red" Brokaw (1912–1982). He was the eldest of their three sons (brothers named William and Michael) and named for his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Conley.

His father was a descendant of Huguenot immigrants Bourgon and Catherine (née Le Fèvre) Broucard, and his mother was Irish-American, although the origin of the name Brokaw is contested. His paternal great-grandfather, Richard P. Brokaw, founded the town of Bristol, South Dakota, and the Brokaw House, a small hotel and the first structure in Bristol.

Brokaw's father was a construction foreman for the Army Corps of Engineers. He worked at the Black Hills Ordnance Depot (BHOD) and helped construct Fort Randall Dam; his job often required the family to resettle throughout South Dakota during Brokaw's early childhood. The Brokaws lived for short periods in Bristol, Igloo (the small residential community of the BHOD), and Pickstown, before settling in Yankton, where Brokaw attended high school.

As a high school student attending Yankton Senior High School, Brokaw was governor of South Dakota American Legion Boys State, and in that capacity he accompanied then-South Dakota Governor Joe Foss to New York City for a joint appearance on a TV game show. It was to be the beginning of a long relationship with Foss, whom Brokaw would later feature in his book about World War II veterans, The Greatest Generation. Brokaw also became an Advisory Board member of the Joe Foss Institute.

Brokaw matriculated at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, but dropped out after a year as he apparently failed to keep up in his studies, in his words majoring in "beer and co-eds". In 2010, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University, and he later donated his papers to the University of Iowa Libraries. He joked that the "honorary degree is especially coveted because it helps to make up for the uneven (to put it mildly) performance of my freshman year." He later transferred to the University of South Dakota, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.

For several years, Brokaw mountain-climbed with the "Do Boys," whose members included Yvon Chouinard and Douglas Tompkins. He owned a 53-acre home in Pound Ridge, New York, for over two decades.

Personal life

Since 1962, Brokaw has been married to author Meredith Lynn Auld. They have three daughters: Jennifer, Andrea, and Sarah. Brokaw and his wife spend considerable time at their ranch near Livingston, Montana, which they bought in 1989.

On September 6, 2012, Brokaw was hospitalized after appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe. He later tweeted that he was "all well" and explained his illness as having accidentally taken half a dose of Ambien in the morning. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable blood cancer, in August 2013 at the Mayo Clinic. Brokaw and his physicians are "very encouraged with his progress". He has continued to work for NBC throughout his treatments. On December 21, 2014, Brokaw announced that his cancer is in full remission. His book A Lucky Life Interrupted tells the personal and compelling story of his battle with multiple myeloma.

In 2018, Brokaw was accused of unwanted sexual advances toward two women in the 1990s. Brokaw denied the allegations. In response to the allegations, former colleagues Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell, Maria Shriver, Kelly O'Donnell, and 64 others, signed a letter characterizing Brokaw as "a man of tremendous decency and integrity".

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Broadcasting career

Brokaw's television career began at KTIV in Sioux City, Iowa, followed by stints at KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska, and WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1966, he joined NBC News, reporting from Los Angeles and anchoring the 11:00 p.m. news for KNBC. In 1973, NBC sent Brokaw White House correspondent, covering the Watergate affair, and Nightly News' anchor Bill Brokaw. In 1976, he co-anchored (with Jane Pauley) of NBC's Today Show and remained in the role until 1981, when Bryant Gumbel took over.

He held a closely guarded mystery for many years, but Brokaw recalled being invited – and later turning down – the Nixon White House press secretary post in 1969. Brokaw was living in California before Nixon's political comeback, as well as Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, and other White House staff members.

In 2019, Brokaw wrote "The Fall of Richard Nixon: A Reporter Remembers Watergate," about his time as a reporter and as a member of the White House press corps.

Brokaw began coanchoring NBC Nightly News from New York in 1982, replacing John Chancellor John Chancellor Roger Muddd in Washington. After a year, Fox News president Reuven Frank concluded that the dual-anchor system was not operational, and Brokaw was selected to be sole anchor. Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News started on September 5, 1983. Among other news, he covered the Challenger disaster, the EDSA Revolution, the June Struggle, Loma Prieta earthquake, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Hurricane Andrew.

On November 9, 1989, Brokaw became the first English-language broadcast journalist to cover the Berlin Wall. Brokaw attended a televised press conference held in East Berlin by Günter Schabowski, press spokesman for East Berlin, which had just agreed to encourage citizens to apply to permanently leave the country through its border with West Germany. When Schabowski wondered when this loosening of rules would go into place, he looked at his notes and then said, "immediately, without delay," triggering a stampede of East Berliners to the Wall. After the press conference, Brokaw spoke to Schabowski, who reiterated his "immediately" comment when asked. Brokaw arrived from the west side of Brandenburg Gate on this announcement and pandemonium that had broken out in East Berlin due to the cold.

Brokaw, the first one-on-one American television interviews with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Vladimir Putin, was the first one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He and Katie Couric co-founded Now, a prime-time newsmagazine that aired from 1993 to 1994 before being folded into the multi-night Dateline NBC show.

Brokaw also walked on stage in 1993 in response to David Letterman's monologue about NBC jokes about NBC, in reaction to David Letterman's monologue on CBS, where he was joined by Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra performing the NBC Nightly News theme). He applauded Letterman on his latest appearance and wished him well, but he later confessed to being angry and shocked; he later walked over to the man holding the cue cards; "These last two jokes are the intellectual property of NBC." "We'll be leaving the scene shortly." "Who'd have guessed'intellective property" and "NBC" in the same sentence?" a letterman continued.

In 1996, Brokaw issued the following statement regarding Richard Jewell's suspected participation in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, which culminated in Jewell's suing NBC News:

Despite the fact that NBC stuck to its story, the network decided to pay Jewell $500,000.

Following the live attack on the World Trade Center's South Tower, Brokaw joined Katie Couric and Matt Lauer around 9:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001, and continued to anchor all day until late. Following the demise of the second tower, Brokaw observed: "This is war." This is a declaration and the execution of an attack on the United States." On the following two days, he anchored coverage to midnight. Anthrax was delivered to him later that month as part of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Brokaw was not hurt, but two NBC News workers were infected with the virus. He testified before the Commission on the Prevention of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism of the anthrax attacks in 2008 for the first time in a comprehensive, day-by-day account.

Following the 2004 presidential election, NBC announced that Brokaw will step down as anchor of the NBC Nightly News in 2002. Brian Williams will take over. Brokaw will continue working with NBC News from that point onwards as an analyst and anchoring and producing documentary films. On December 1, 2004, Brokaw announced that he had concluded his final Nightly News broadcast in front of 15.7 million viewers on NBC.

Brokaw was regarded as the nation's most well-known news anchor by the end of his tenure as the Nightly News anchor. In late 1996, Nightly News had risen to first place in the Nielsen ratings and stayed on top of Brokaw's tenure on the program, ranking him ahead of ABC's Peter Jennings and World News Tonight, as well as CBS' Dan Rather and CBS Evening News. Brokaw, along with Jennings and Rather, helped usher in the era of the television news anchor as a well-deserved, globe-trotting celebrity of the 1980s. If Brokaw and his colleagues from the other two networks were on the scene, the severity of a news event could be determined by how much money was raised. Brokaw's resignation in December 2004, followed by Rather's ouster from the CBS Evening News in March 2005, and Jennings' death in August 2005 brought the period to a close.

After leaving the anchor chair, Brokaw remained at NBC as the Special Correspondent, providing periodic news for Nightly News. He served as an NBC strategist during the 2008 presidential election bid and moderated the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain at Belmont University. He produced documentaries for the Discovery Channel and the History Channel, and in 2006, he penned one of the state's eulogies for former President Gerald R. Ford's state funeral.

Brokaw, the announcer, was on June 13, 2008, when NBC cut it back to announce the sudden death of NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert. Brokaw will be stationed as the host of Meet the Press for an interim period a week later, NBC revealed that he would appear on Meet the Press on an interim basis. In December 2008, David Gregory took over.

Brokaw serves on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Rescue Committee, and the Mayo Clinic. He is also a member of the Howard University School of Visitors and a trustee of the University of South Dakota, the Norton Simon Museum of Natural History, and the International Rescue Committee. He also handles a University of Iowa commercial that airs on television during Iowa Hawkeyes athletic events.

The Boys in the Hall, a Fox Sports Net baseball documentary film, was launched in 2011.

Brokaw appeared in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's annual Christmas concert in December 2012, with live audiences of 84,000. In December 2013, the show, Home for the Holidays, was nationally televised.

A new television facility opened on the Universal Studios Hollywood lot in April 2014 and was named in Brokaw's honor as the Brokaw News Center. The facility houses KNBC-TV, Telemundo owned-and-operated station KVEA, and NBC News' Los Angeles bureau.

President Barack Obama awarded Brokaw the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2014, the highest civilian award in the United States. "The chronicler of the Greatest Generation...We praise him as one of our country's finest journalists."

At her funeral, Brokaw sang one of former First Lady Nancy Reagan on March 11, 2016. He discussed his experience with both the Reagans as a reporter and later anchor.

Brokaw's senior anchor, Asso Espinosa de los Monteros, who has been in Ecuavisa since 1967, announced on January 22, 2021, one of the world's few news anchors on the network for the longest time.

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