In the previous decade he served as a weekend anchor for the program from to He formerly held a special correspondent post for NBC News. Brokaw has also written several books on American history and society in the 20th century including The Greatest Generation He occasionally writes and narrates documentaries for other outlets.
Brokaw is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the two Peabody Awards ; two Emmy Awards ; the Presidential Medal of Freedom , which was awarded to him by President Barack Obama in ; [ 8 ] and the French Legion of Honor in Brokaw, founded the town of Bristol, South Dakota , and the Brokaw House, a small hotel and the first structure in Bristol. Brokaw's father was a construction foreman for the Army Corps of Engineers. 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".
He joked that the "honorary degree is especially coveted because it helps to make up for the uneven to put it mildly performance of my freshman year. Brokaw kept a closely guarded secret for many years: in Brokaw wrote of having been offered β and having promptly turned down β the press secretary position in the Nixon White House in While living in California before Nixon made his political comeback, Brokaw had come to know H.
After a year, NBC News president Reuven Frank concluded that the dual-anchor program was not working and selected Brokaw to be sole anchor. Brokaw scored a major coup when, on November 9, , he was the first English-language broadcast journalist to report the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Brokaw had an interview with Schabowski after the press conference, who repeated his "immediately" statement when pressed. Later that evening Brokaw reported from the west side of Brandenburg Gate on this announcement and the pandemonium that had broken out in East Berlin because of it.
He and Katie Couric hosted a prime-time newsmagazine , Now , that aired from to before being folded into the multi-night Dateline NBC program. The speculation is that the FBI is close to making the case. They probably have enough to arrest [Jewell] right now, probably enough to prosecute him, but you always want to have enough to convict him as well. There are still some holes in this case. Following the collapse of the second tower, Brokaw observed: "This is war.
