NEWS: Tom Brokaw Wraps It Up, Last Day On Job Is Coming Up (fix), page 1

64 year old Tom Brokaw, who has anchored NBC's "Nightly News" for 20 years, will call it quits soon. His last night on the job will be December 1, 2004. His last Election Night will be considerably grander.

www.cnn. com
NEW YORK (AP) -- As a 16-year-old high school student, Tom Brokaw spent his first working Election Night in a radio station newsroom in Yankton, South Dakota. He reported results from rural polling places, and ate chicken catered from Kip's Blue Moon restaurant.

NBC is expecting a big night for TV viewers, and Brokaw will be at the center of it all.

This should be Brokaw's last hurrah, since he steps down as NBC's chief anchorman December 1. By Election Day 2008, certainly one and maybe all three network faces will be different. Rather turns 73 on Halloween and is fighting for his future after CBS's botched story on President Bush's National Guard service. Jennings is 66.

His biggest disappointment after two decades anchoring "Nightly News" is that the broadcast is still 30 minutes long and not an hour.

What Brokaw has found most touching are the moments in airports -- most recently Phoenix after the final presidential debate and Los Angeles -- where folks approached him to say they'll miss seeing him on television.

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"They rely on us," he said. "You feel at the end of having done it all these years that if people still have faith in what you've done and feel a personal connection, and feel it so strongly that they're willing to come up to you and express that, that's very gratifying."

Brokaw says this isn't the end of his career, no retirement, he plans on writing books and working on documentary programs for NBC. To see him immediately after December 1st, you'll have to travel, fishing in New Zealand, mountain climbing in Argentina and Chile, maybe you'll be lucky enough to catch him in an airport somewhere and give thanks for one of his many many news broadcasts.

[edit on 25-10-2004 by elevatedone]

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