Tom Brokaw: ‘We Let the Word ‘Retirement’ Get out There in an Inappropriate Way’

Tom Brokaw‘s latest documentary “BOOMER$” airs tonight on CNBC (9pmET), and the LA Times’ Matea Gold spoke to Brokaw about his new documentary as well as his perspective on his career going forward. He said the plan was never to “retire” when he left “Nightly News,” but that “the idea was to shift gears.” He also discussed his concerns about the state of journalism:

One of those threatened planets is journalism, and Brokaw calls the changes wrenching traditional media “one of the most vexing questions of my lifetime.”

“We made a huge mistake in allowing the canard ‘Information is free’ to exist for a long time. It’s not free,” he said, noting the costs of getting staff to Chile this week to cover the aftermath of the massive earthquake there.

Gold writes that Brokaw remains a “center of gravity” in the NBC news division and that NBC News president Steve Capus “speaks to him several times a week to solicit his perspective.” That influence apparently extends beyond the newsroom. He says Caroline Kennedy told him he was on the potential VP list in 2008, but he remarked, “The idea that I would be a vice presidential candidate would have sunk the ticket.”

Previously: Tom Brokaw On The Big 7-0: ‘I’m Not Mature Enough to Be 70′

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