Tom Brokaw Opens Up About His Battle With an Incurable Blood Cancer
Matthew Perez Tom Brokaw, the legendary newsman who spent more than five decades at NBC News, is opening up about his experience battling incurable cancer.
In a preview of his upcoming interview with CBS Sunday Morning's Jane Pauley, the 83-year-old says doctors didn't think he would make it to that age when he was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma a decade ago. Brokaw announced the diagnosis in February 2014. As he's gotten older, Brokaw says the blood cancer, which affects bone marrow blood cells, has taken its toll on him.
"I've had a bad experience," he tells his longtime friend about the 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."
Once NBC's top anchor for two decades, Brokaw recalled having to walk away from the profession he legitimized with his name alone.
"I've had to change my life in some way," he says. "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."
The veteran TV journalist -- whose new book, Never Give Up: A Prairie Family's Story, is a love letter to his hardworking parents and available now -- referred to himself as "the luckiest guy I know" when he announced his diagnosis.
"With the exceptional support of my family, medical team and friends, I am very optimistic about the future and look forward to continuing my life, my work and adventures still to come," he said at the time.
Brokaw retired from NBC News in January 2021 after 55 years at the network. He established himself as one of the preeminent journalists of our time, and is the only anchor to have helmed all three NBC News flagship programs: Today, Nightly News and Meet the Press.
"During one of the most complex and consequential eras in American history, a new generation of NBC News journalists, producers and technicians is providing America with timely, insightful and critically important information, 24/7," Brokaw said in a statement after announcing his retirement. "I could not be more proud of them."
Brokaw, who in 2014 was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and has numerous prestigious awards under his belt, worked his entire career in TV news with NBC, getting his start at the network's Los Angeles bureau.
It was there that he reported on Ronald Reagan’s first run for public office, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 presidential campaign. He'd go on to become the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw, where he was at the helm for 22 years.
Brokaw's interview with Pauley airs Sunday at 9 a.m. EST on CBS.
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