Tom Brokaw
Cheers to Tom Brokaw for proving a "steady hand at the tiller" during the second presidential debate. Despite the candidates' refusal to abide by time limits, the NBC anchor emeritus expertly kept the conversation on course.
Brokaw chastised the contenders for ignoring the rules, yet was flexible enough to allow for rebuttals when both Senators requested them. And despite accusations of bias leveled at his network's cable cousin MSNBC, the moderator came across as truly fair and balanced. Somewhere, Tim Russert must be smiling.
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Tom Brokaw by Tom Brokaw by Gary Gershoff/WireImage.com
Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw has been named interim moderator of Meet the Press. He will moderate MTP beginning Sunday, June 29 and will serve in that post through November's presidental election.Former host Tim Russert died of a heart attack June 13. Brokaw also hosted a special MTP edition last week that recounted Russert's life and career. Current Nightly News anchor Brian Williams moderated today's MTP telecast.The AP reports Brokaw discussed taking over the moderator post with NBC News president Steve Capus while riding the train back from Washington to New York from Wednesday's memorial service for Russert."The plan is for me to be in place until they can find somebody who can take it over on a permanent basis," Brokaw said.In addition to finding a full-time MTP moderator to take over following November's elections, NBC must find someone to fill Russert's shoes as Washington bureau chief. — J.R. WhalenRelated:• Cheers: A Memorable Tim Russert Memorial• Who ...
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Tom Brokaw by Ali Goldstein/NBC
Executives at NBC News are still reeling over the death of friend and colleague Tim Russert. But soon they will have to come up with a plan about how to proceed with their coverage of the 2008 Presidential campaign, which includes picking Russert's successor at Meet the Press. While we believe there are only two real candidates for the job, here's what we think about all the names that have been thrown out there.
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After the sudden and tragic death of famed political analyst Tim Russert, NBC went forward with a Tom Brokaw-hosted, special edition of Meet the Press which paid tribute to his "beloved colleague." The emotional episode filmed as Russert's moderator chair stood empty in remembrance of his extraordinary life and career. apparent heart attack. Russert's son, Luke, was also on the Today show this morning expressing his appreciation to the outpouring of support from the NBC family as he and his mother are taking everything "day by day" during this difficult time.Related:• Meet the Press' Tim Russert Dead at 58• Matt Roush Remembers TV's Political Enthusiast• TV Guide's Last Interview with Tim Russert
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Tom Brokaw courtesy NBC
As the broadcast news community and its audience still reels from the news of Tim Russert's passing, NBC has decided to broadcast this Sunday a special, Tom Brokaw-hosted edition of Meet the Press, celebrating the political analyst's extraordinary life and career."Tim was a man of many passions — his family most of all, his faith, his country, political journalism, baseball and the Buffalo Bills," Brokaw shares in a statement. "As a working class Irish-American with a Jesuit education his range was wide and deep — from the sensibilities of blue-collar voters to the politics of the Vatican, from the power plays on Capitol Hill to the power plays on network television. Almost all of our conversations — and they went on every day — ended with some version of, 'Can you believe how lucky we are to be doing this?'"Brokaw is the one who broke into Friday-afternoon programming to report the sudden passing of the NBC family's "beloved colleague."In most markets, Meet the ...
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Katie Couric by Andrew Eccles/CBS and Tom Brokaw by Brian Ach/WireImage.com
Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw tells the Boston Herald he warned Katie Couric about moving from morning to evening news."I told her when she left that it's a dive off the high board," Brokaw said. "This is harder than it looks, to go from the morning to the evening."He feels CBS shares some of the blame for CBS Evening News' declining ratings since Couric took over the anchor chair. "I think that they made a number of mistakes in terms of how they marketed her and what their approach to the news was."Couric's low ratings have fueled speculation that CBS may replace her after the 2009 presidential inauguration. — J.R. WhalenRelated:• Buzz Builds That Couric Is Eyeing Exit from CBS• The Biz: If Couric Exits CBS, Who Could Fill the Anchor Chair?
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Tom Brokaw by Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com
Don't look for former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw at any New York Knicks fan appreciation parties anytime soon. Brokaw, a longtime Knicks fan often seen in his high-priced courtside seat, told XM Radio over the weekend that he's had it with the team and is not renewing his season ticket subscription. "[Knicks owners] get these huge prices for people to sit in the stands, all kinds of tax advantages to owning [Madison Square Garden] and yet they operate as if they were a sovereign country and want to play only by their own rules," Brokaw told the radio network. Ouch.The Knicks, who perennially have among the highest-paid rosters in the NBA, are poised to rack up their seventh consecutive losing season record. —J.R. Whalen
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Tom Brokaw by Scott Gries/History Channel
You didn't need reality TV in 1968. The evening news provided one cataclysmic unscripted event after another, as assassinations, riots and the Vietnam War kept viewers transfixed every night. Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw was working at KNBC in Los Angeles at the time. His new History Channel special 1968 With Tom Brokaw, (debuting Dec. 9 at 9 pm/ET) combines his own reflections with compelling interviews of witnesses and participants of the era. Brokaw, also on the bestseller list these days with Boom! Voices of the Sixties, told The Biz why what happened in that tumultuous year still matters today.TVGuide.com: Why is 1968 the hot year right now?Tom Brokaw: So much of who we are now was formed in that year. The FDR coalition became unraveled. The Republican Party reorganized itself in a way that allowed it to win six of the next eight Presidential elections. You had the rise of the modern conservative movement, which had a profound effect on American politics. You have an enorm...
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Question: I have seen a few criticisms of Brian Williams' decision to host Saturday Night Live, people saying that as a newsman he would be denigrating his integrity, Edward R. Murrow would be spinning in his grave, yada, yada. I normally don't watch the show, but as a (print) journalist, I was curious to see Williams' performance. I think there's a line between pandering yourself for cheap laughs and showing an ability to poke fun. In my opinion, Williams did a great job of demonstrating the latter. He was really entertaining and showed comedic ability, and it's not like now I'll no longer find his news reports credible. Perhaps this would've been unthinkable in the days of Walter Cronkite or even Tom Brokaw. But even if this was just a gimmick for NBC Nightly News to reach out to a "hipper" audience, I can't help but be happy and relieved for Williams. It must have felt like Lorne Michaels approached him to try skydiving for the first time. And to know he survived it without serious ...
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Shannen Doherty by John Sciulli/WireImage.com
ABC Family has greenlit Christmas Caper, a TV-movie starring Shannen Doherty as a Grinch-like cat burglar out to "steal Christmas" from her sleepy hometown, Variety reports. Doherty also has been tapped to play the old friend of a gay spy in here! Network's Kiss Me Deadly: A Jacob Keane Assignment, the first installment in a series of espionage thrillers.... Tom Brokaw is collaborating with History Channel on an examination of 1968, a year that featured the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the launch of Apollo 8, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and RFK.
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