Like the Beatles song, Tom Brokaw is 64. Incidental to that fact, he’s retiring. But don’t expect him to be renting a cottage at the Isle of Wight.

The venerable Brokaw stepped down as NBC’s lead anchor for the “NBC Nightly News” last week but will still remain an active newsman by contributing to NBC documentaries. Brokaw was with television audiences through good and bad. He will be missed.

Brokaw was a product of South Dakota and worked his way up from his early experiences in Omaha, Neb., to eventually lead “NBC Nightly News” for nearly 23 years. Brokaw was the first of the three major network anchors to step down. Dan Rather will step down from CBS in the spring. Peter Jennings will continue as the anchor for ABC.

Kudos to Brokaw cannot be entirely flowery. He was indeed an icon of major corporate media.

Our system of news has deteriorated considerably during the last decades because of conflicts of interest and an unwillingness to ask hard questions that would make politicians and businessmen squirm. Nevertheless, Brokaw cannot be blamed for the rotting pillars of journalism that are continually being replaced by infotainment.

Brokaw was a father figure whom the public could look to in good times and bad. It could count on Brokaw presenting the news with the same calm assuredness as the World War II era individuals he wrote about in his best seller, “The Greatest Generation.”

Brokaw was there through the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square and Sept. 11, 2001. Eventually, people turned to him with a trust uncommonly given to today’s public figures. Brokaw consistently delievered a reliable broadcast and avoided the high profil misteps that caused many to lose trust in Rather. As Brokaw’s fame grew, he bridged the divide between journalist and celebrity.

With the profusion of news outlets on cable, Internet and otherwise, it is unlikely the United States will look again toward a power news triumvirate of anchormen of the caliber we have come to enjoy, especially on that includes a journalist equal to Brokaw. That’s a loss to us all.