Although he co-anchored with Roger Mudd starting in 1982, Tom Brokaw began anchoring the “NBC Nightly News” as a solo anchor on September 5, 1983. His last broadcast came on December 1, 2004.
Video: “Tom Brokaw’s Road to NBC Nightly News – Oprah’s Master Class – Oprah Winfrey Network.”
“Brokaw began his journalism career in 1962 at KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska. He anchored the late evening news on Atlanta’s WSB-TV in 1965 before joining KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. Brokaw was hired by NBC News in 1966 and from 1976-1981 he anchored NBC News’ ‘Today’ program.”
“While his news credentials are extensive — Mr. Brokaw served as NBC’s White House correspondent in the Watergate era, conducted the first American interview with Mikhail Gorbachev and was the only television journalist to broadcast live from the Berlin Wall as it fell — his impact has had much to do with his personality and his skill as a reliable, measured, classically Middle American storyteller. He managed to gain and hold the trust of viewers, even as he presided over sweeping changes in the way that news was presented and packaged on television.”
— New York Times (2004)
“I think September 11th was probably the most challenging. I never anticipated we’d have something like this happen in my professional lifetime within the continental United States. It was so unexpected and the magnitude of the damage and the loss of life was so great and there was so much uncertainly for so many hours on end….”
— Today Show interview (2003)
Video: NBC Nightly News 9/11/01
“Tom Brokaw is arguably just as famous for a book he wrote. The Greatest Generation (1998), in which he celebrated the courage and resourcefulness of the men and women who served in World War II and overcame the Great Depression, was a huge bestseller and spawned a household phrase.”
— Peabody Award (2013)
Video: “Tom Brokaw on the Greatest Gift from The Greatest Generation – Oprah’s Master Class – Oprah Winfrey Network.”
“Brokaw, who’s written five best-selling books, says curiosity, hard work and contacts led him to a series of career ‘firsts.’ He was the first U.S. anchor to report that the Iraq war had begun, the first American anchor to travel to Tibet to report on human-rights abuses, and the first and only anchor to report from the scene when the Berlin Wall fell.
‘The line that I developed is ‘it’s always a mistake not to go.’ You can sit around and debate, ‘Should I leave for this story or not? If I went, I always found something happened,’ Brokaw said. ‘There’s always a reason to turn over a rock and find out what’s under it.'”
— Poynter (2010)
Video: “Tom Brokaw Says Farewell to NBC Nightly News” December 1, 2004. Here is a link to other Brokaw videos.
