Legendary NBC News anchor and correspondent Tom Brokaw recently sat down with former colleague-turned CBS Sunday Morning host Jane Pauley for an in-depth interview that’s set to air on CBS this coming weekend.
Brokaw, now 83, discusses his family, his new book and his decade-long battle with an incurable blood cancer. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma 10 years ago, and says doctors didn’t think he would make it to 83.
“I’ve had a bad experience,” Brokaw tells Pauley of his illness. “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.”
Brokaw says he had to walk away from broadcasting, an extremely difficult decision.
“I’ve had to change my life in some way,” he tells Pauley. “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.”
Brokaw talks with Pauley about his new book, Never Give Up: A Prairie Family’s Story, a love letter to his hardworking parents. Brokaw and his wife Meredith also talk about playing matchmaker by introducing cartoonist Garry Trudeau to his future wife – Jane Pauley.
“I said… ‘Boy, Garry is really a good friend, he’s at the office a lot,’” Brokaw says. “And Meredith said, ‘It’s not about you, he wants to meet Jane.’ I said, ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.’”
Legendary journalist and anchor @tombrokaw talks about his dad “Red,” his new book “Never Give Up: A Prairie Family’s Story,” and his decade-long battle with incurable blood cancer in an emotional interview with his longtime friend anchor Jane Pauley, THIS SUNDAY. pic.twitter.com/mMi9c4DdHT
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) June 23, 2023
Brokaw and Pauley were colleagues at NBC News for many years. Brokaw spent a whopping 55 years at the network, 21 of those as anchor of NBC Nightly News (1983-2004). He joined the network in 1966, stationed in the network’s Los Angeles bureau to cover Ronald Reagan’s first run for public office, and retired from NBC News in January 2021. Pauley spent 13 years as co-host of NBC’s Today (1976 – 1989) and 11 years as Dateline NBC anchor (1992 – 2003). She hosted the short-lived short-lived Jane Pauley Show in 2004, before joining CBS News in 2014, first as a CBS Sunday Morning contributor and then as a substitute host before taking the permanent host reins from Charles Osgood in 2016.