NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw steps down after more than two decades at the helm. John Knicely visited with the former $100-a-week Omaha newsman in New York recently for a look back.
Most people know Tom Brokaw as the face of NBC Nightly News. He's been the main anchor since 1983 but his television career started in Omaha at KMTV.
They'd offered me the job at $90 a week," Brokaw recalls. "I was marrying a doctor's daughter and I said I need to have a three figure salary. So, I held out for $100, and Mark Gautier, the late, beloved Mark Gautier, said we'll give you $100, but you'll never get a raise. That's a promise he kept."
That was more than four decades ago, in 1962. It was a year that would see a historic journey into outer space, a missile crisis in Cuba and a gas war in Omaha that Brokaw would be reporting on, far from the spotlight of history.
"I think gas was like 30-cents a gallon at the time," he recalls.
The Brokaws' first apartment in Omaha was near 42nd and Farnam, right on an ambulance run with a hospital right around the corner. The apartment was furnished minus one important amenity.
"We didn't have a TV," he says. "We couldn't afford it. We were newly married. I had college debts. We'd gotten a lot of wedding presents that consisted of crystal we were never going to use, but no TV."
So the Brokaws made their way to La Casa's on 44th and Leavenworth. They would find a seat by the TV and watch the news.
Brokaw says, "There was a wonderful Italian-American, a man named Ross, who said, 'What are you doing here? You're on television.' He said, 'I won one in a church drawing. Come in tomorrow and I'll let you use it.' Then we got involved in his whole family."
During his three-year stint in Omaha, Brokaw wrote, produced, edited, reported and anchored, all with an eye toward New York.
"I was ambitious," he says. "I wanted to be a network correspondent. I would badger all those correspondents…They were very patient with me. They probably thought we'll never hear from this kid again."
From Omaha, Brokaw moved to Atlanta and a year later, in 1966, he joined NBC News, first reporting from California and then moving east to become a White House correspondent.
After seven years on the Today Show, he made his final move to the NBC Nightly News anchor desk.
Video: Tom Brokaw Looks Back
Brokaw Behind The Scenes
After 21 years at the anchor desk for NBC Nightly News, Tom Brokaw signed off for the last time Wednesday night.
During a recent interview with John Knicely in New York, Brokaw told us, "It's time for a new generation to take over at the Nightly News."
Brokaw had actually intended to leave several years earlier.
"Then 9/11 happened and I knew I couldn't leave," he said. "I spent a lot of time in that part of the world. It is very consequential to this country."
Brokaw's watch coincided with a lot of rewrites of the history books.
He says, "Going to Berlin two days before the wall came down, that was instinct about things happening. I'd always say you make your own luck. My mantra around here was it's a mistake not to go. So you make things happen. It happened in South Africa. It happened in Iraq. It happened a lot, other places. I think that's what good journalists should do."
As for Brokaw's hand on the tiller, he says, "It's not so much me deciding what the American agenda should be. The news is pretty obvious on any given day. It's the priorities you assign to it: What story's going to be first, how it's going to be treated. I like to think that I bring kind of middle-America sensibility to what we do because I grew up out there. I'm still in touch with people in South Dakota and Nebraska and Montana where I spend a lot of time. I listen to them. I think that's important. Too much of our business is about one-way communication. In listening to them, I hear what their concerns are, what their needs are. We reflect that in what we do."
Two weeks ago, the national spotlight turned to the heartland when Marine Corporal Shane Kielion was killed in Iraq on the day that his son was born in Omaha.
"I remember that story," Brokaw says. "It was a difficult story because I knew those neighborhoods. You know Omaha, south, is a working class area. Here's a young man who was the quarterback of his high school football team, who felt he owed it to his country to join the Marines; married his high school sweetheart; served in the Marines, then was killed about the time his first child was born.
"These are the consequences of war. At the same time those kinds of people, these are the people who are the underpinning of who we are. They join up and answer the president's call. They suffer greatly when someone is killed but they go on with their lives. They pay the consequences for all of us. So, it's those stories that always have the biggest impact on me."
Tom Brokaw is the first major broadcast news anchor to step down in more than two decades.
He passes the baton to Brian Williams.
Video: Tom Brokaw Behind The Scenes
Brian Williams Steps Up
One day after an era came to an end, a new one began. Brian Williams stepped up to the NBC Nightly News anchor desk on Thursday, taking over for Tom Brokaw who had been at the helm for 21 years.
Williams began his broadcasting career in Pittsburg, Kansas doing everything, he says, but operating the transmitter.
He's well aware that he's following in the footsteps of a broadcasting giant.
John Knicely recently spoke with Williams in New York
When war broke out in Iraq, Williams went to the front and when Baghdad fell he was there as NBC's first correspondent on the scene.
Williams tells us, "I would say, I'll take this air conditioned studio over that desert and that sandstorm."
Even though he's the new anchor of Nightly News that doesn't mean he's going to be chained to the desk.
"The next time I see you will probably be in your newsroom when we come through town," he says. "No blue state newscast can explain Red state America without going there. So we will."
In doing so, Williams will have an opportunity to introduce himself in a more personal way to various parts of the country.
His visibility at NBC spans more than a decade, so he's far from unknown but he now takes over the number-one rated newscast.
"I think it's not something you think about all the time," he says, "but you keep getting reminded of it. When friends like you come to New York. Yeah, I'll be happy when this run-up is over.
"People will ask, 'will you do any tinkering? Will we see any change under you?' The old expression, if it ain't broke comes to mind. I don't feel the need to fix anything. It's an awfully serious time and I take this responsibility very seriously."
Brian Williams knows he's taking over for a legend. He says he's humbled and ready.
"There's no way I can be him. What I can say to people is, I hope we've gotten to know each other the last 10 years. I've been filling in for him and traveling the world, reporting from far-flung places. I hope you can give me a fraction of the support and loyalty you've shown my friend, Tom, all these years."
Brian Williams is at the helm but we will be hearing from Tom Brokaw again. He will continue to cover politics for NBC News, work on documentaries and write more books.
He says he also plans to travel to some exotic places, go fly fishing and probably climb a peak or two.
Video: Williams Steps Up
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