Brokaw, the veteran NBC broadcast journalist, and Burns, perhaps the nation's best-known documentary filmmaker, gathered at Old Sturbridge Village, where Burns' "professional life began," he said.
Veteran NBC News journalist Tom Brokaw, left, and filmmaker Ken Burns spoke to the press Tuesday at Old Sturbridge Village, where Brokaw was honored with the Ken Burns Lifetime Achievement Award.
STURBRIDGE — Tom Brokaw has been reporting history's first draft ever since he broke in at a small Midwest TV station some 50 years ago. Today, the best-selling author and former longtime NBC news anchor is widely viewed as one of America's most trusted chroniclers of history – as it unfolds.
That's why it made perfect sense for Ken Burns, the nation's best-known historical documentary filmmaker, to tap Brokaw for the Ken Burns Lifetime Achievement Award. The honor was presented to Brokaw during a Tuesday evening ceremony at Old Sturbridge Village.
The setting, replete with snow-covered lanes and actors dressed in 19th century garb, meshed perfectly with the common vision shared by Burns and Brokaw, old friends with a passion for history and Western Massachusetts. Brokaw even brought his own kids to Old Sturbridge Village when they were younger. "I've always loved this corner of Massachusetts," he said.
For Burns, Western Massachusetts is the filmmakers' old stomping ground. He went to Hampshire College in Amherst and his first documentary film, 1975's "Working in Rural New England," was about Old Sturbridge Village. That helped cement a lifelong relationship with Old Sturbridge, the largest living history museum in the Northeast. "My professional life began here," said Burns, of Walpole, N.H.
The award-winning filmmaker went on to write, direct and produce documentaries on such quintessentially American topics as baseball, jazz, the national park system and the Civil War, among numerous other subjects that have earned him critical acclaim and legions of fans.
Of receiving the Burns award, Brokaw, 72, said, "It's always flattering. My wife always says, 'One of these days they're going to catch on to you, Tom.' "
During a pre-award session with the local press, including TV news crews and weekly and daily newspaper reporters, Brokaw and Burns chatted amiably about the relationship between the news and history, the former becoming the latter, in many cases. But they also showed that they're just regular guys. Burns noted that it didn't start snowing in earnest until he crossed into Massachusetts from New Hampshire late Tuesday afternoon, while Brokaw joked, "Mr. Burns is here to speak on behalf of the Patriots. I'm here to speak on behalf of the Giants."
Then the talk turned to history and the news, and that's when their energy and passion was on full display. One important rule: "Remember the context in which it's happening," Brokaw said, referring to historical events as they unfold. He cited the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the 9/11 attacks on America as highlights of his long career in broadcast journalism.
"Ken and I are great friends," said Tom Brokaw, left, the former longtime anchor of "NBC Nightly News," who joined filmmaker Ken Burns at Old Sturbridge Village on a snowy Tuesday. Brokaw was in town to receive the annual Ken Burns Lifetime Achievement Award.
"That's what television does best – it transmits history," said Brokaw, anchor of "NBC Nightly News" from 1982 to 2004.
Despite being flooded with information from every imaginable source, including the Internet and a 24-7 news cycle that never takes a vacation, network TV news still plays an important role, according to Brokaw. "It's better than people think it is," he said.
Historian David McCullough has bemoaned an America whose "historical illiteracy" threatens not only its memory of things past, but its vision for the future. Brokaw acknowledges that today's younger generation may not get tested to the same degree as "The Greatest Generation" he wrote about in his 1998 book, but he quickly notes that many of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan were from working-class backgrounds – and they joined the military of their own volition.
"We've just gone through the two longest wars we've fought in American history," he said, referring to the first major conflicts of the 21st century.
Brokaw, who coined the phrase the "greatest generation," chronicles the lives of those who were raised against the backdrop of the Great Depression and World Ward II. After returning from the war, these men and women helped build America into the world's superpower, he said. "It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced," Brokaw wrote in the book.
The self-described "political junkie" from South Dakota pursued a career in broadcast journalism when many of his colleagues were becoming lawyers and businessmen. "A lot of my friends thought I was on a fool's errand," he said. But after 50 years in the business, it looks like Brokaw might get the last laugh.
"I've been very, very fortunate," he said.