Tom Brokaw has had an impressive career in journalism. He has been an anchor on the NBC news shows “Today,” “Meet the Press” and “NBC Nightly News,” and he is the only journalist who can say that. During his career, he covered news stories including Watergate and Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, but a career can’t last forever.
In January 2021, Brokaw announced that he was retiring after 55 years. This news came years after receiving a diagnosis for an illness he had been battling for some time.
In 2013, Brokaw was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma. For years, he continued to work while battling the disease.
In a recent interview with his friend and former colleague, Jane Pauley, Brokaw explained, “I kept thinking bad things wouldn’t happen to me. But as I grew older, I began to develop this condition. And what you try to do is control it as much as you can.”
During the interview for “CBS Sunday Morning,” Brokaw opened up about his battle with this incurable form of blood cancer. He also talked about his father, Red Brokaw, and his latest book, “Never Give Up: A Prairie Family’s Story.”
Brokaw explained that when he was first diagnosed 10 years ago, his doctors didn’t think he would live this long, yet here he is, 83 years old. He opened up about how he has had to change his life because of his diagnosis. Brokaw said, “I really had to give up my daily activity with NBC. You know, I had to walk away from them, as they were walking away from me. I just wasn’t the same person. … And so, for the first time in my life, I was kind of out there, you know, in a place I had never been in my life.”
In addition to talking about his life, Brokaw also brought up a story that involved Pauley. It turns out that Brokaw and his wife Meredith played match maker and ended up introducing Pauley to cartoonist Garry Trudeau, the man who would become her husband. Brokaw remembered telling his wife, “Boy, Garry is really a good friend, he’s at the office a lot.” His wife pointed out, “It’s not about you; he wants to meet Jane.” The rest, as they say, is history.
See a preview of the upcoming interview in the video below.
