Thomas John Brokaw is an American retired network television journalist and author.
47 Facts About Tom Brokaw
2.
Tom Brokaw first served as the co-anchor of The Today Show from 1976 to 1981 with Jane Pauley, then as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 22 years.
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Tom Brokaw is the only person to have hosted all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press.
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Tom Brokaw formerly held a special correspondent post for NBC News.
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Tom Brokaw has written several books on American history and society in the 20th century including The Greatest Generation.
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Tom Brokaw occasionally writes and narrates documentaries for other outlets.
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In 2021, NBC announced that Tom Brokaw would retire after 55 years at the network, one of the longest standing anchors in the world at the same news network.
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Tom Brokaw is recipient of numerous awards and honors including the two Peabody Awards, and two Emmy Awards, as well the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was awarded to him by President Barack Obama in 2014.
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Tom Brokaw was born in Webster, South Dakota, the son of Eugenia "Jean", who worked in sales and as a post-office clerk, and Anthony Orville "Red" Tom Brokaw.
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Tom Brokaw was the eldest of their three sons and named for his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Conley.
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Tom Brokaw's father was a descendant of Huguenot immigrants Bourgon and Catherine Broucard, and his mother was Irish-American, although the origin of the name Brokaw is contested.
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Tom Brokaw's father was a construction foreman for the Army Corps of Engineers.
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Tom Brokaw worked at the Black Hills Ordnance Depot and helped construct Fort Randall Dam; his job often required the family to resettle throughout South Dakota during Brokaw's early childhood.
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Tom Brokaw became an Advisory Board member of the Joe Foss Institute.
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Tom 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".
16.
For several years, Brokaw mountain-climbed with the "Do Boys," whose members included Yvon Chouinard and Douglas Tompkins.
17.
Tom Brokaw owned 53-acres with a home in Pound Ridge, New York, for over two decades.
18.
Tom Brokaw became co-host of NBC's Today Show in 1976 and remained in the job until 1981, when he was succeeded by Bryant Gumbel.
19.
In 2019, Tom Brokaw wrote a book entitled, "The Fall of Richard Nixon: A Reporter Remembers Watergate", about his experiences working as a reporter and experiences as a member of the White House press corps.
20.
The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw commenced on September 5,1983.
21.
Tom Brokaw scored a major coup when, on November 9,1989, he was the first English-language broadcast journalist to report the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
22.
Tom Brokaw attended a televised press conference organized in East Berlin by Gunter Schabowski, press spokesman for East German Politburo, which had just decided to allow its citizens to apply to permanently leave the country through its border with West Germany.
23.
Tom Brokaw had an interview with Schabowski after the press conference, who repeated his "immediately" statement when pressed.
24.
Later that evening Tom Brokaw reported from the west side of Brandenburg Gate on this announcement and pandemonium that had broken out in East Berlin because of it.
25.
Also, in 1993, on the first broadcast of Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, in response to David Letterman's monologue containing jokes about NBC, Tom Brokaw walked on stage in a surprise cameo.
26.
In 1996 Tom Brokaw made the following statement about Richard Jewell's suspected involvement in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, after which Jewell sued NBC News:.
27.
Tom Brokaw was not harmed, but two NBC News employees were infected.
28.
In 2002, NBC announced that Tom Brokaw would retire as anchor of the NBC Nightly News following the 2004 Presidential election, to be succeeded by Brian Williams.
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Tom Brokaw would remain with NBC News in a part-time capacity from that point onwards, serving as an analyst and anchoring and producing documentary programs.
30.
Tom Brokaw closed his final Nightly News broadcast in front of 15.7 million viewers on NBC on December 1,2004, by saying:.
31.
Tom Brokaw served as an NBC analyst during the 2008 presidential election campaign and moderated the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain at Belmont University.
32.
Tom Brokaw reported documentaries for the Discovery Channel and the History Channel and in 2006 delivered one of the eulogies during the state funeral of former President Gerald R Ford.
33.
On June 13,2008, when NBC interrupted its regular programming to announce the sudden death of NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw served as the announcer.
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Tom Brokaw was succeeded by David Gregory in December 2008.
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Tom Brokaw is a member of the Howard University School of Communications Board of Visitors and a trustee of the University of South Dakota, the Norton Simon Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the International Rescue Committee.
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Tom Brokaw provides the voiceover for a University of Iowa advertisement that airs on television during Iowa Hawkeyes athletic events.
37.
In 2011 Tom Brokaw began hosting The Boys in the Hall, a baseball documentary series for Fox Sports Net.
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In December 2012, Tom Brokaw starred in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's annual Christmas concert, with live audiences of 84,000.
39.
On March 11,2016, Tom Brokaw gave one of the eulogies for former First Lady Nancy Reagan at her funeral.
40.
Tom Brokaw spoke about his relationship with both the Reagans as a reporter and later anchor.
41.
On January 22,2021, NBC announced Tom Brokaw would retire after 55 years at the network, one of the few news anchors in the world who have spent the longest time on the same news network, along with Ecuadorian news anchor Alfonso Espinosa de los Monteros who has been in Ecuavisa since 1967.
42.
Since 1962, Tom Brokaw has been married to author Meredith Lynn Auld.
43.
On September 6,2012, Tom Brokaw was hospitalized after appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
44.
Tom Brokaw later tweeted that he was "all well" and explained his illness as having accidentally taken half a dose of Ambien in the morning.
45.
Tom Brokaw was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable blood cancer, in August 2013 at the Mayo Clinic.
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Tom Brokaw continued to work for NBC throughout his treatments.
47.
On December 21,2014, Tom Brokaw announced that his cancer is in full remission.