Oft-honored Tom Brokaw, “Nightly News” anchor for 21 years, retiring from NBC News after more than five decades
Legendary NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, a fixture in America’s living rooms for more than two decades on the “Nightly News” and the longtime face of the network, retired Friday to close his long and storied on-air career.
Brokaw developed into one of television news’ most trusted sources as he collected a multitude of honors: The Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award, a dozen Emmys, two Peabody Awards. In each of his last four years at the anchor desk, the “NBC Nightly News” was honored with the Murrow Award for Best Newscast.
Brokaw, who turns 81 next month, landed as a newcomer at NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza headquarters in 1976 as a host of the “Today” show before shifting seamlessly into the job of evening news co-anchor with Roger Mudd in 1982.
He soon became as a solo act in 1983, spending the next 21 years as host of the “Nightly News” before stepping down in 2004. In all, Brokaw worked at NBC News for 55 years.
“‘Legend’ does not begin to encompass what he means to our networks and American culture for more than a half century,” said colleague Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Washington Correspondent.
Brokaw, his down-to-earth delivery leavened by a quiet sense of humor, soon attracted a national following to started his much-lauded tenure with the network. The globe-trotting journalist reported from Normandy Beach on the 60th anniversary of D-Day, traveled to Afghanistan for a piece on Al Qaeda, and was the only network anchor on the scene when the Berlin Wall fell.
Brokaw — credited for popularizing the “Greatest Generation” tag for those who came of age during World War II — scored exclusive interviews with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama. He earlier worked as NBC’s White House correspondent during the Nixon-era Watergate scandal, and covered the 1976 conventions of both political parties.
Closer to home, he anchored NBC’s coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks as the collapsed World Trade Center burned five miles south of the network newsroom. In 2014, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“So bittersweet to hear the great Tom Brokaw is retiring from NBC News after more than half a century,” tweeted Kasie Hunt, the network’s Capitol Hill correspondent. “I’m still in awe I had the chance to learn from him.”
The native of Webster, S.D., first worked as a news editor for an Omaha, Neb., station before moving to anchor the late evening news at an Atlanta TV station. He joined the network in 1966 as an anchorman in Los Angeles, and plans to continue working in retirement.
“Brokaw will continue to be active in print journalism, authoring books and articles, and spend time with his wife, Meredith, three daughters and grandchildren,” according to an NBC statement.
Brokaw won his first Peabody in 1989 for the documentary “To Be An American,” a look inside the tapestry of life in the nation. He also briefly hosted “Meet the Press” after the death of colleague Tim Russert.
The veteran journalist additionally reported on 25 NBC News documentaries, covering wide-ranging issues from the AIDS crisis to Los Angeles gangs to literacy and evangelism. He also collaborated with NBC News’ Peacock Productions on the Emmy-winning “Global Warning: What You Need to Know with Tom Brokaw” and teamed with the History Channel for a pair of documentaries: “1968 With Tom Brokaw” and “KING,” a biography of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King.
He was accused in 2018 by a female NBC colleague of sexual harassment — charges he flatly denied.
Brokaw also wrote a half-dozen books, including 1988′s “The Greatest Generation” and the 2015 memoir “A Lucky Life Interrupted” about his battle with cancer.
