Tom Brokaw Set to Retire From NBC News After 55 Years
Tom Brokaw, the anchor who rose from an early stint at a station in Sioux City, Iowa to anchor three of the nation’s best-known TV-news packages – “Today,” “NBC Nightly News” and, for a short while, “Meet the Press,” is about to step down formally from NBC News, the place he has labored since 1966.
Brokaw’s time on air has dwindled in recent times, whereas he has served as a particular correspondent for the NBCUniversal-owned outlet, and in addition battled with most cancers. He turned 80 in February.
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“During one of the most complex and consequential eras in American history, a new generation of NBC News journalists, producers and technicians is providing America with timely, insightful and critically important information, 24/7. I could not be more proud of them,” mentioned Brokaw, in a ready assertion. His longest tenure was at “NBC Nightly News,” which he led between 1982 and 2004.
He is connected to an period when the evening-news anchors at NBC, CBS and ABC carried extra affect than they do in the present day, when information aficionados are bombarded minute by minute with pressing headlines on cable-news rivals and social media. Brokaw represented the technology that inherited the evening-news desk from John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite and Frank Reynolds. He vied with Dan Rather at CBS and Peter Jennings at ABC and helped NBC usurp CBS because the broadcaster of the nation’s most-watched evening-news program.
Brokaw didn’t depend on the “voice of God” narration that had change into a lot part of evening-news supply. He additionally had sturdy midwestern roots that gave him perspective past the New York and Washington, D.C. studios that information anchors usually hang-out. He was born in South Dakota and went to faculty in Iowa. His early stints in broadcasting got here in Iowa and Nebraska. He targeted a lot of his time on books concerning the “Greatest Generation,” Americans whose lives have been affected by World War II, and continued to work on historic evaluation after his “Nightly” stint.
Brokaw joined NBC News in 1966, initially working in Los Angeles. By 1973, he was reporting from Washington, and in 1976, he was named co-anchor of the community’s “Today” morning present, the place he labored alongside Jane Pauley. In 1982, with Chancellor off of (*55*) Brokaw started co-anchoring the night newscast alongside Roger Mudd. Executives rapidly soured on the dual-anchor format and Brokaw was made this system’s sole anchor by 1983.
He was the primary U.S. journalist to interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, and was the one American community anchor to report from Berlin the evening the Berlin Wall got here down.
After he left (*55*) ceding duties to Brian Williams, Brokaw served as a type of elder statesman for NBC News, providing commentary throughout elections and essential particular studies. When Tim Russert, the favored anchor of “Meet The Press,” died unexpectedly in 2008, it was Brokaw who introduced the information to viewers — after which stuffed in on the Sunday program for a time period.
Brokaw confronted accusations of sexual harassment in 2018, when Linda Vester, a former NBC News anchor alleged Brokaw made undesirable advances towards her in a resort room within the mid-Nineties. Brokaw denied the allegations, and a bunch of distinguished feminine anchors at NBC News, together with Rachel Maddow and Mika Brzezinski, rose to his protection.
Brokaw plans to stay energetic in print journalism, authoring books and articles, whereas spending time along with his spouse, Meredith, three daughters and grandchildren.
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