On April 5 , 1982 , Brokaw began co-anchoring '' NBC Nightly News '' from New York with Roger Mudd in Washington . After a year , NBC News president Reuven Frank concluded that the dual-anchor program was not working and selected Brokaw to be sole anchor . The '' NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw '' commenced on September 5 , 1983 . Among other news items , he covered the Challenger disaster , EDSA Revolution , Loma Prieta earthquake , fall of the Berlin Wall and Hurricane Andrew . Brokaw scored a major coup when , on November 9 , 1989 , he was the first English-language broadcast journalist to report opening of the Berlin Wall . Brokaw attended a televised press conference organized in East Berlin by Günter Schabowski , press spokesman for East German Politburo , which had just decided to allow East Berliners to cross to the West without prior approval . When Schabowski was asked when this epoch-making freedom would take effect , he glanced through his notes , then said , " '' sofort , unverzüglich '' " ( " immediately , without delay " ) , touching off a stampede of East Berliners to the Wall . In 2009 , Riccardo Ehrman , who had asked the question about the changes in the travel law during the press conference , stated that he had been specifically requested by a personal friend in the East German government to raise the issue , but Schabowski called that absurd . Brokaw had an interview with Schabowski after the press conference who when pressed repeated his " immediately " statement . Later that evening Brokaw reported from the west side of Brandenburg Gate on this announcement and pandemonium that had broken out in East Berlin because of it
Loma Prieta earthquake
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
Tom Brokaw