By David K. Li - NBC News
Tom Brokaw, the legendary host of NBC News, Telemundo's sister network, announced on Friday that he is retiring, thus lowering the curtain on a half-century career in which he chronicled some of the most important moments in US history.
Brokaw, 80, is retiring as the sole host to have directed NBC's top three news shows: Nightly News, TODAY and Meet the Press.
"During one of the most complex and momentous times in American history, a new generation of NBC News journalists, producers and technicians is providing the United States with timely, insightful and critically important information, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, "Brokaw said in a statement.
"I couldn't be more proud of them," he added.
["My dad can feel the pain in others and comfort": interview with Biden's daughter]
While Brokaw has won numerous prestigious journalism awards, including the Peabodys, Duponts, Emmys, and the Edward R. Murrow for a Lifetime Achievement in the Media, he may be best known for
his work documenting the sacrifices of citizens. of the United States during World War II.
Tom Brokaw interviews former President Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, California, in 1990. Getty Images
His book
The Greatest Generation
, published in 1998, portrayed many of those who came of age during that difficult period in history.
Brokaw began his NBC career at headquarters in Los Angeles, where the network now broadcasts to the West Coast from the Brokaw News Center.
[This Latino son of an immigrant peasant woman made the purple suit that Kamala Harris wore at the inauguration]
Brokaw covered former President Ronald Reagan's first campaign for public office;
the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy;
and the 1968 presidential campaign that Richard Nixon won.
He moved to the capital in 1973 and worked as a
White House correspondent during the Watergate scandal
, which forced Nixon to leave office in 1974.
In 1976, he co-
hosted the
TODAY
show
before becoming host and editor-in-chief of Nightly News in 1983.
He led the team there for 22 years before resigning in late 2004 to become a special correspondent for NBC.
He also served as a moderator for the Meet the Press program in the immediate aftermath of Tim Russert's death in 2008.
In 2014, then-President Barack Obama awarded Brokaw the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor that can be received in the United States.
