As tasteless as it may seem, the rush to find out what to do with Sunday's Meet The Press, following Tim Russert's sudden death at NBC's D.C. studio this afternoon, is on. We're told Steve Capus & Co. are already plotting out what to do, and it's likely Andrea Mitchell will be asked to chair the show, though David Gregory is also a candidate. It's very possible Sunday's show will be used, at least in part, to air a video memorial of Russert, with Tom Brokaw being asked to join the panel, along with Chuck Todd, and others. It's unclear what the role of Brian Williams, who is anchoring NBC Nightly News from Afghanistan, will be, says, a source.
Now that Hillary Clinton has finally fulfilled Chris Matthews' year-long dream of exiting the race, it's time to make sense of all that was the 24-hour primary news cycle during the 16-month Barack v. Hillary battle. New York Knicks ticket policy violator and former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw has some thoughts: CONTINUED »
Hedge fund manager Ralph Schlosstein, who runs a 5K in under 26 minutes, was paying for two of Tom Brokaw's four New York Knicks tickets, but was refused when trying to renew the seats. The Dolan family's Cablevision, which owns Madison Square Garden, said there was a waiting list for those seats, and that it's against policy to transfer your seats. But there's one other theory: The former NBC anchor's criticism of the Garden. In April he told XM radio, ""I won't renew because I don't like the attitude that the ownership has brought to the community. They have failed their obligation to the city . . . The Garden has lost a lot of its luster." [P6] Which is absolutely true. You just don't say those things when you're apt to break their policy.
Will Farrell's "Ron Burgundy" is back. With Tom Brokaw. At Radio City Music Hall. Reliving the good old days of news broadcasting. Enjoying the possibilities Sue Simmons has opened up for us: "I just remember in '89 during the stock market crash, I heard you say, 'The Dow Jones just took a fist up the butthole today.'"
Have you heard about those fake news anchors on Comedy Central? Not only are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert great for pushing books, but they're great for pushing the political dialogue further. Two important people think that way, so it's nearly almost certainly true. CONTINUED »
If hindsight is 20/20, then Tom Brokaw had one hell of a Lasik operation. The former NBC news anchor, once a Today show host himself (and, for a year in the early 90s, co-host of Now with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric), claims he, like every other media insider, warned Katie Couric about taking the CBS Evening News gig. "I told her when she left that it’s a dive off the high board." For what it's worth, Brokaw doesn't have Couric's legs.
Tom Brokaw's book about the 60s – which required research assistants numbering more than San Francisco's homeless – hasn't sat well with the gays, who were essentially left out of the book's list of important developments of the decade.
When the controversy hit in November, Brokaw went on CNN to defend his decision to gloss over the gay rights movement, since "the gay rights movement came slightly later. It lifted off during that time and I had to make some choices about what I was going to concentrate on. The big issues were the anti-war movement, the counterculture."
Now, he's backtracking.
In an interview with the Advocate, the still-omnipresent news anchor says he "feel[s] bad" about the decision. "It was not that it wasn’t on my mind, but it was not the defining history of the ‘60s. I was trying to do the five big pillars, which in my judgment were race, war, politics, women, and culture. There were a number of important movements that also grew out of the ‘60s and certainly gay liberation was important among them…I think it was a mistake not to make reference to Stonewall. And we’re going to do that in subsequent editions."
Paperback? Psshaw.
What’s the difference between bitchy high schoolers and multi-media power players? Just the venue.
Don Imus said some disparaging remarks about Tom Brokaw yesterday, claiming he’s “not the most courageous person I've ever met in my life. … He's not the guy I'd want to be in a foxhole with."
This came in response from to Brokaw telling Seattle Times that Imus "should have been fired." Before all the nappy-headed drama, Brokaw was an Imus regular.
If yesterday we learned that popularity takes more than good looks and money, today we discovered that high school bullshit never ends.
PET NAMES Rachel Sklar's vernacular so far includes: Brian Williams as "BriWi," Katie Couric as "KaCo," and, as of today, Tom Brokaw as "ToBro." What's next? Diane Sawyer as "DiSaw" and Robin Roberts as "RoRo"?
Remember when book writing was a lonely craft, back when the quill pen had given way to the portable typewriter and authors lived in garrets? … Back then, authors did their own research, actually went places, met people and filled notebooks with local color.
Welcome to the real world of today–celebrity books and group journalism. Do you truly believe that presidential candidates, movie stars, realityTV-show performers and NFL quarterbacks write their own books? Surely, you jest. Take Tom Brokaw … Unlike most "celebrity authors," Brokaw is upfront and refreshingly candid in tackling this prickly question, and about the debt he owes to others ["Team Brokaw"] in writing his books.
[...] Years ago, Peter Jennings, Brokaw and Dan Rather were the iconic anchormen of our time. Today, Jennings is dead, Rather is an angry man suing the network that sacked him and Brokaw is happily retired and writing best-sellers. Why not? This is how books get written these days, and he's got the formula.
–Excerpted from James Brady's longer piece "Team Brokaw" appearing in today's Forbes.com
When I first got into the business, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were the only three people who were doing the evening news at the time. There were no all-news cable on CNN, MSNBC or FOX. Most of these journalistic enterprises were organized by and run by white middle-aged men from the Eastern seaboard. That was the prism through which the rest of the country saw the world.
That's changed considerably now. The evening news anchors are competing with the internet. They're competing with the all-news cable channels all day long. They're also competing for the attention of a younger audience that doesn't go home at night and sit down at the dinner table with their parents and watch the news.
–Retired anchorman Tom Brokaw addresses the evolving nature of the evening news broadcast [Time]
After keeping his multitude of mistresses and unclaimed children under wraps for over thirty years, a certain newsman "and TV legend" may yet have his philanderous world come crashing down.
'Why?' you ask. Because Page Six just outed his ass—anonymously, of course—leaving us to speculate wildly about the off-air activities of a broadcasting mainstay.
WHICH newsman and TV legend has been able to keep his skeletons in the closet for decades? He has two children out of wedlock who are now adults living in New Jersey.
Now, before we start entertaining guesses as to the identity of this procreating pundit, we've got to congratulate him on having the common sense to ditch his bastard family (Kids, who needs them?) and stick them in the only place no one would ever look: New Jersey.
And with that said, let the unsubstantiated gossip-mongering begin! In fact, we'll even start you off with a list of possible suspects.
Apparently Matt Lauer wasn't always the debonair on-air correspondent we see in front of us Today. In fact, he nearly flushed his entire career down the toilet during a chance encounter with Tom Brokaw on his first day at NBC!
Don't believe us? Take a look at Lauer's belated confessional.
So I go into the bathroom and I'm in the stall and I'm nervous, I do what I have to do. And I leave the stall, and as I'm walking out the door of the stall, into the bathroom walks Tom Brokaw…And I'm waiting for him to finish peeing. And now I'm stalling because he's still going, and all of a sudden something occurs to me that's wrong.
Intrigued? Find out what happens after the jump!
CONTINUED »
• Liz Spiers remains to her true blog roots, letting others ferret out the material info after she drops the preliminary scoop. [MWD]
• Brian Williams enlists Tom Brokaw to make sure he's a winner on election night. [AP]
• How Les Goodstein avoided a non-compete clause is anyone's guess. [NYM]
• A non-African wins the NYC Marathon men's competition for the first time in 10 years, while Lance Armstrong proves he's no one-minute-man by beating the 3-hour mark by seconds. [WCBS]
• Elizabeth Vargas returns to ABC, post-maternity leave. Still sniping about World News anchor gig. [TVN]
• A Hachette fire sale to match Time Inc.'s? Cue official denials. [Gawker]
• Russell Crowe doesn't do charity work for movie studios — just as part of his community service requirements. [NYT]
• Need a good laugh? Take a look at Howard Kurtz's explanation of journalism, and why it sometimes requires reading. [Romenesko]
• Courtney Love is selling her real house…and buying a crack house. [Curbed]
• Monday nights are about to get a lot more interesting. You can watch Heather Graham's fake Sex and the City Show then catch "Roller Girls" crash the shit into each other. Or, you can just watch Boogie Nights. [Slate, ABC]
• Note to the Guardian: celebs may not be supporting our troops, but fake celebs are. [MSNBC]
• Truly breaking news of the day: Tom Brokaw and Harrison Ford are old. [Rush & Molloy]
• Who to swap handshakes with: Members of the Marine Corp. or Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles? We'd choose to watch Lost repeats, but Tom Brokaw broke his armed forces speaking commitment to be with the latter. [Page Six]
• So much for Leonardo DiCaprio's Pussy Posse's charm. After getting the boot from Gisele Bundchen after exploring the shores of Sienna Miller's beach, he couldn't even muster a Halloween lay. [Page Six]
• The latest Rosa Parks name dropper? Sarah Michelle Gellar, who lectured on the shallowness of women's values today – compared to Parks' mission – at .. a party for DKNY jeans. [Lowdown]
• She'll do the cover of New York and pen 12,000 words for the Times in any given week, but point a paparazzi camera at Maureen Dowd and she'll flee. [Gatecrasher]
• Wednesday night's gala at the Guggenheim for the new Michelin Red Guide was a foodie who's who, but the French book's snubs meant the Four Seasons' Julian Niccolini was (among others) a no show, leaving Daniel Boulud to soak up the limelight. [Page Six]
• What do you do when your own network won't help you pimp your memoirs? If you're Mike Wallace, you have your son, Chris, interview you. [AP]
• Retired nightclub impresario Peter Gatien is back on the scene, but if a nightclub opens in Toronto, does it really count as a comeback? [Page Six]
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