Q&A; WITH TOM BROKAW : ‘The User-Friendly Anchor’

Tom Brokaw has traveled a long way from his hometown of Yankton, S.D. The former KNBC-TV Channel 4 reporter in Los Angeles and NBC White House correspondent is celebrating his 10th anniversary as anchor of “NBC Nightly News” this week--a job that has taken him around the world covering major news events.

Brokaw, who also began hosting the prime-time newsmagazine “Now” this summer, recently completed negotiations with NBC to renew his contract for another three years. While he said that he enjoys his job and is pleased with the improved morale today at NBC News, those three years as anchor could be his last. *

Question: I understand that you are about to sign a new three-year contract with NBC. Why three years instead of (the more customary) five years?

Answer: In three years, I will be 56 years old, and I will have been with this company for 30 years. At the end of that time, I will have been the anchor for 13 years. That’s a long time in any job. I thought that in three years, I’m going to want to take stock of my life. This has nothing to do with NBC or any unhappiness here. It just seems to me to be a sensible thing to do.

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Q: There has been speculation that you may want to run for the U.S. Senate. Are you interested in doing that?

A: No, I am not interested in running for the Senate. I’m not interested in running for public office. I think it’s an honorable calling, but I want more of a private life, not more of a public life. I like to write, for example, and I don’t have much time to do that. This doesn’t mean I want to give up television. It may mean that I will want to give up daily television.

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Q: Most people would think that someone in your job would want to go on forever. What’s the difficulty in being an anchor today? Is it being chained to the desk?

A: No, it’s not being chained to the desk because we do get out a lot. I love going to Tokyo or wherever the action happens to be. It’s just that when you get there and get immersed in an interesting story, it’s time to break off, run back and get into harness for the evening news. When I went to Nepal this summer on vacation, I spent every day listening to the BBC three times a day to make sure that I didn’t have to call in a helicopter to pluck me off of the Himalayas and fly me to Katmandu so that I could get out and cover a story. I don’t want to live like that for the rest of my life.

I’ve covered Watergate, I’ve covered wars, I’ve interviewed Gorbachev, I was there when the Berlin Wall came down. This is a great, great job. It’s just a question of how long do you want to do it.

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Q: What has been the biggest change in TV news in the past 10 years?

A: The biggest change is that there’s more of it on the air. Second, there’s more competition. Third, technology makes it possible to get on the air from almost anywhere at any time. The fourth big change is the financial pressures. And they all play against each other. Because the competition is greater and because the overall network TV business is not what it once was, we have to be more resourceful now and we have to work harder at story selection.

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Q: The evening newscasts on the broadcast networks used to be called “the nightly national seance” where the nation gathered to get its news. Do you think the evening newscasts could ever again have the kind of impact on the nation that they had in the past?

A: No, I don’t, just as I don’t think the Big Three auto makers are going to have the same impact as before. But I do think that, for the foreseeable future, on big stories, on a sustained basis, the country still turns to the networks.

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Q: One night recently on “Nightly News,” you led with Bosnia; another night, it was (the allegations of child-abuse against) Michael Jackson. You recently had a story about an Atlanta judge who was accused of murdering his wife and running a drug-laundering operation; the footage included blood on a car. It seems as if we’re seeing more blood and more intimate details of people’s lives in news coverage. Do you think the tabloid publications are driving the agenda of the mainstream media?

A: No, I don’t, although I do think it’s a more competitive environment today. Michael Jackson was a big story of a major cultural figure, big enough to make the front pages of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. I don’t think we covered it in a titillating way. When the most important story of the day was Bosnia, we led with that. Another day recently, the major story was China trade agreements.

I think the broadcast networks have done a pretty responsible job (of not sensationalizing the news). At the same time, there are an awful lot of cultural changes that we’re reflecting. No one would talk about child abuse in the past; now it’s a big issue. There’s an awful lot of violent crime in America--carjackings, gangs--you’ve got to cover them, and you’ve got to cover them in a way that has some context. Rape is another example. For a long time, rape was a hidden issue that was not talked about.

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Q: Is there any contradiction between what you’ve said about considering your future and signing on to do a new newsmagazine?

A: (Laughs.) I’m not here resting comfortably for the next three years. I’m here to work.

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Q: When Andrew Lack came in as president of NBC News (last April), he changed the format and anchors for the show, asking you and Katie Couric to be the co-anchors. Why did you want to do the show?

A: I recognized the inherent value of doing something successful for this news division. I thought that it would be good to do a newsmagazine show in a way that I’d be happy and proud about and that might lead to a 10 o’clock news block.

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Q: How would that work?

A: It might be a combination news and magazine show, with, say, live updates on what’s going on with Hurricane Emily, what’s happened in Israel (with Middle East peace talks). Then you’d go to a longer feature piece. This would be in addition to the regular dinner-hour newscasts.

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Q: Corporately, which is more important to NBC, “Nightly News” or a successful newsmagazine?

A: “Nightly News” is the engine that drives the news division. The networks make a lot of money on their nightly newscasts. And the affiliates (local stations) want the network newscasts in the middle of their evening-news block. There was a time when they thought they could fill it all themselves, but I think they’ve realized that they need the network newscasts.

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Q: Do you think the three network newscasts look alike?

A: We do tend to cover the same major stories, but we’re not in a lock-step. I think “Nightly News” has improved under (new executive producer Jeff Gralnick). We’re more focused and more on top of the news.

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Q: How would you describe your anchor style, compared to Peter Jennings and Dan Rather?

A: I think Peter’s got the anchor elan. Dan, he’s the state trooper in your face. And I think I’d describe myself as the user-friendly anchor.

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Q: What do you think of Rather and Connie Chung as co-anchors?

A: It’s not my style to comment on what the other networks are doing. I don’t have a problem emotionally with a co-anchor. But I don’t think there’s room for it in 22 minutes. One of the reasons these programs work is that you’ve got a single authority figure--male or female--that drives through the 22 minutes. This back-and-forth, back-and-forth between co-anchors gets in the way of a strong linear newscast.

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Q: I understand that ABC News approached you about being the anchor for “Turning Point” (an upcoming newsmagazine) several months ago.

A: Yes, that’s true. “60 Minutes” also made a run at me at the same time--to be a correspondent. It was very flattering. But I didn’t want to leave this place in the turmoil it was in (over “Dateline NBC”). I didn’t think it would be fair to my colleagues. Also, I’d been trying to get Andy Lack here for some time. When he came here, I thought this is going to be an interesting and productive time.

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Q: What do you think of (former NBC News president) Michael Gartner?

A: I don’t wish Michael ill. But I think television is a medium that resisted his interest. He grew up as a newspaperman, and he never got out of that. Also, he had a tough brief from the corporate owners.

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Q: Will Andrew Lack have more resources financially?

A: Yes. We’ll still have financial constraints, but, for example, on “Nightly News,” we may be expanding our foreign-news coverage.

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Q: Are there changes in place now to guard against another incident like the rigging of the GM truck on “Dateline NBC”?

A: Yes. We’ve changed the internal-review process--everything is checked nine different ways now instead of six different ways. The people who were in charge at the top and on the program are gone. The people in this place who were not part of it said that they were ashamed by it. I don’t know what more we can say about it. It was a very painful period for NBC. But I think that we and the public have moved on.