Tom Brokaw retires from NBC News after 55 years: Dan Rather, Lester Holt, Andrea Mitchell and more wish him well - Yahoo Entertainment

Tom Brokaw, who announced his retirement from NBC News on Friday, sure has a lot of friends.

They recalled working with Brokaw over his 55 years at the network, as he covered the 1968 presidential campaign, including the assassination of Robert F.

As NBC noted, Brokaw was the only anchor to have led all three of its major news shows: Nightly News, Today and Meet the Press.

Mitchell, who works alongside Brokaw at NBC, said he was as important to the network as its peacock mascot.

— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) January 22, 2021.

The current host of the nightly newscast that Brokaw once led, Holt, congratulated his colleague on having more free time, which the 80-year-old plans to spend with his family.

Thanks for your counsel and friendship and enjoy retirement.

— Lester Holt (@LesterHoltNBC) January 22, 2021.

A sad day as Tom Brokaw announces his retirement from NBC after 55 years.

Here from 9/5/83 is his first-ever broadcast as the sole anchor of NBC Nightly News, the start of a 21-year run that would see him emerge as America's most popular and trusted news anchor: pic.twitter.com/bSSgrLXL2K.

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) January 22, 2021.

Rather, Brokaw’s CBS competition from his days at NBC Nightly News, called him “always much more of a friend.”.

Happy retirement, Tom.

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) January 22, 2021.

— Maria Shriver (@mariashriver) January 22, 2021!

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) January 22, 2021.

Tom Brokaw is retiring after 55 years at NBC News.

— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) January 22, 2021.

So bittersweet to hear the great Tom Brokaw is retiring from @NBCNews after more than half a century.

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) January 22, 2021.

Brokaw’s other honors over the years include NBC dedicating its West Coast facility, the Brokaw News Center, to him in 2014, and President Obama awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom the same year.

Brokaw himself released a statement earlier in the day: “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.

The new “America’s Most Wanted” will premiere this March on Fox, the network announced on Friday.

Tom Brokaw, the anchor who rose from an early stint at a station in Sioux City, Iowa to anchor three of the nation’s best-known TV-news programs – “Today,” “NBC Nightly News” and, for a short time, “Meet the Press,” is set to step down formally from NBC News, where he has worked since 1966.