January 22, 2004
Tom Brokaw to Give Commencement Address
EVANSTON, Ill.
--- Tom Brokaw, anchor and managing editor of “NBC
Nightly News,” will address graduates, parents and guests
at Northwestern University’s 146th annual commencement exercises
Friday, June 18.
Brokaw, who will receive an honorary doctor 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.
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, Emmy, Overseas Press
Club, Edward R. Murrow and National Headliner awards.
The NBC News anchor 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." Inspired by the mountain
of mail he received from first his book, Brokaw wrote "The
Greatest Generation Speaks" in 1999, and in 2001, this third
book, "An Album of Memories" was published. In November
2002, his fourth best selling book "A Long Way from Home," a
reflective look about growing up in the American Heartland, was
released. |