Brokaw talks 'deflate-gate,' cancer diagnosis and his 'Lucky Life Interrupted'
By Caitlin Dickson
Tom Brokaw’s vote is in: Tom Brady knew, and the punishment fits the crime. The longtime news anchor aired his opinion on the so-called deflate-gate scandal during a live interview with Yahoo global news anchor Katie Couric on Tuesday, a half-hour conversation that also covered his battle with blood cancer and the release of his new memoir.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that [Tom Brady] didn’t know,” Brokaw said, referring to the quarterback’s knowledge regarding the New England Patriots’ illegal use of underinflated footballs. “I don’t think his two underlings would have deflated the footballs without knowing that’s what Tom wanted to have happen.”
While the NFL’s decision to suspend Brady for four games sparked outcry, Brokaw said he believes it was an appropriate response — and that he doubts that the the Patriots’ offense is an anomaly.
“There are things that happen on the scrum of the field, violations that people get away with,” he said.
Brokaw, whose celebrated career in journalism includes more than two decades in the anchor chair on "NBC Nightly News,” also got personal, discussing his new book about the cancer that nearly ended his life.
After being diagnosed in 2013 with multiple myeloma, a manageable but incurable blood cancer, he started keeping a journal, which later served as the draft for “A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope.”
Having always wondered how he might react to learning he had a life-threatening illness, the 75-year-old Brokaw told Couric that his initial response to his diagnosis was that of a newsman: “From the outside looking in.”
“My immediate reaction was, ‘My family is going to be OK,’” he said, describing the “utter calm” he felt upon hearing the news, knowing that his finances were in order.
“I wanted [my wife] Meredith to have the life she’d gotten used to, so I was OK with that,” Brokaw said. “I also didn’t think I was going to die,” he added. “But I wasn’t unrealistic about it.”
Putting his news skills to work, Brokaw was determined to learn as much as he could about the disease, and he sought out the best doctors and treatment. After two powerful rounds of chemotherapy and a spinal surgery that left him two inches shorter, he is now in remission, managing the illness with a daily dose of chemo and trying to get back in shape.
While Brokaw readily weighed in on deflate-gate, he was much less willing to discuss another scandalous suspension in the news: that of his “NBC Nightly News” successor Brian Williams.
Brokaw told Couric he hasn’t spoken to Williams apart from some emails exchanged “in the early stages” of his colleague’s embellishment scandal, but he did not want to speculate on the future of the embattled anchor’s career. He prefers to “let the process play out.”
He did talk in general terms about the state of the news industry and what he perceives to be negative fallout from the 24-hour news cycle that has become the standard on television and online.
“The issue for me with the need to fill space 24/7 is there is way too much opinion and speculation, stuff that’s not based in fact,” he said in response to a question from a Facebook user about the 24-hour news cycle’s impact on accurate reporting. “The essential role of a journalist is to provide the audience with information that is useful to them."
Still, Brokaw said he thinks for the most part, news today is better than ever.
“When I first started this business, there were two networks, [and] every decision was made by a middle-aged white man,” he said. With today’s volume and variety of news sources, it’s easy to be a well-informed news consumer.“You can’t be a couch potato anymore.”
Far from a couch potato himself, Brokaw said that while he probably should take more time to “stop and smell the roses,” he’s grateful that retirement has given him more opportunities to do the things he loves, such as attending the 70th anniversary of D-Day, hosting a daily podcast at iHeartRadio and, of course, writing his latest book.
“I had a lucky life,” Brokaw said. “It was interrupted, but I’m still the luckiest guy I know.”
