Tom Brokaw Retiring After 55 Years at NBC News
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Tom Brokaw, veteran journalist and news anchor, is retiring after 55 years at NBC News, the network announced Friday.
“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,” Brokaw said in a statement. “I could not be more proud of them.”
Brokaw, who is 80 years old, has spent his entire journalism career with NBC. He was the longtime anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, anchoring the show from 1983 to 2004. In 2008, following the untimely death of Tim Russert, Brokaw stepped in as the temporary moderator of Meet the Press. Prior to hosting Nightly News, Brokaw was the co-host of the Today show. He first started at the network’s Los Angeles bureau, covering Ronald Reagan’s first run for public office, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and the 1968 presidential campaign. In 1973, he headed to Washington as the NBC News White House correspondent, and covered the Watergate scandal for the network.
Brokaw was the first American journalist to interview then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, speaking to him in an extended on-on-one at the Kremlin in 1987, as the Cold War was starting to wane. Brokaw was also the only American network anchor to report from Berlin the night the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; his reporting earned him The Order of Merit from the German government.
He has been recognized with multiple journalism awards, including Peabodys, Duponts, Emmys, and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting. Brokaw was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government in 2016 for his work and advocacy on issues facing veterans. In 2014, former President Barack Obama awarded Brokaw America’s highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom.
Brokaw’s 1998 book The Greatest Generation, which he said was inspired by time he spent in Normandy with American veterans who fought there, was a bestseller, and essentially coined the term for Americans who lived through the Great Depression and fought in World War 2.
In 2018, former NBC News correspondent Linda Vester accused Brokaw of sexually harassing her in the 1990s. Vester alleged that Brokaw physically tried to force her to kiss him on two separate occasions, groped her in an NBC conference room, and showed up at her hotel room uninvited. A second anonymous woman also told the Washington Post in 2018 that Brokaw acted inappropriately toward her in the 1990s, when she was a production assistant and he was an anchor.
Brokaw, who has been married since 1962, denied any misconduct.
According to NBC, Brokaw will continue to write articles and books, and will spend time with his wife, Meredith, three daughters and grandchildren.
