television

In a word, great! Nothing is more important in a newsman than personal integrity and it's obvious the South Dakota upbringing instilled those values early in Tom's life. For year's I've realized that broadcast journalism has been carried to a new level by Brokaw, and now this book tells me why. It's a must read for anyone, but especially for any broadcast newsman who remembers sporting purple fingers from changing the ribbons in the old UPI teletypes. Tom brings it all home again.

John Schad
President
Smarts Broadcast Systems
Emmetsburg, Iowa

This informal memoir of Brokaw's formative years tell us much about the man who brings us the news today. The focus is on his parent's lives and the first twenty years of his own life; it's clear that this was the time and place that shaped the values that govern his life--integrity, honesty, a dedication to doing things right. Although the tone is warm and nostalgic throughout, Brokaw does not view the past exclusively through rose-colored glasses; he's quite frank about the discriminaton Native Americans have suffered in his homeland; and he's quite open about a period of his own youth when he strayed off the right path for a while. Casual, nostalgic....a great read!

I can relate to this book. My parents lived through the Depression and raised their children in the prosperous sixties and seventies. They live in northern Wisconsin where most of the population was white. The similarites with Brokaw's South Dakota is basically the same. As a product of the Midwest, Brokaw is more similar to me than Rather (Texas) or Jennings (Canada).
I enjoyed this simple story. Tom relates how he made it in televison journalism and New York. Despite where he lives now, he considers himself at home in South Dakota rather than New York. Tom chronicles his early life and relates how and where he was raised even now determine his outlook on life. I feel the same way and that is why this book struck home. I would rather tramp the forests of northern Wisconsin than see the lights of Chicago. People make their way in life in some measure because of who they were born to and where they lived. Tom's rural life and his parents survival of the Depression determined a lot of what Tom eventually turned out to be. A great story.