January 22, 2004

Brokaw will speak at Commencement

Tom Brokaw

Tom Brokaw, anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News,” will address graduates, parents and guests at Northwestern’s 146th annual commencement exercises Friday, June 18.
Brokaw, who will receive an honorary doctor of of humane letters degree at the ceremony, has a distinguished 38-year career in journalism at NBC News. In 2003, as the international controversy escalated over the then-possible war with Iraq, Brokaw traveled to the diplomatic and military hotspots throughout the Middle East and the Gulf.

He was the first American news anchor to report that the war with Iraq had begun, and in April, he landed the first television interview with President Bush since the war with Iraq. During the summer of 2003, Brokaw was the first network evening news anchor to return to Baghdad to report for five nights for “NBC Nightly News” and “Dateline NBC” on post-war Iraq and the reconstruction efforts.

Brokaw has an impressive series of additional “firsts,” including the first exclusive U.S. one-on-one interview with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, the first American network television anchor to interview Vladimir Putin, and he was the first and only anchor to report from the scene the night the Berlin Wall fell. In 1995, he was the first network evening news anchor to report from the site of the Oklahoma City bombing, and one year later was the first to broadcast from the scene of the TWA Flight 800 tragedy.

Brokaw has earned numerous awards for journalistic achievements, including the DuPont Award, a Peabody Award, several Emmy, Overseas Press Club, Edward R. Murrow and National Headliner awards.

The anchor also has a distinguished record as a political reporter. He has covered every presidential election since 1968 and was NBC’s White House correspondent during the national trauma of Watergate. From 1984 through this presidential election cycle, Brokaw will have anchored all of NBC’s political coverage, including primaries, national conventions and election nights and he has moderated eight primary and/or general election debates.

In 1998, Brokaw became a best selling author with the publication of “The Greatest Generation.”