Tom Brokaw lives two lives - as journalist and as volunteer

A sense of fairness is treasured in the news business. But connections are, too.

Tom Brokaw, currently the interim host of “Meet the Press,” would seem to have both.

He’s widely respected for being even-handed in his interviewing.

At the same time, Brokaw is an insider’s insider. He may have more connections, more Muckety, than any journalist in the United States.

Tom Brokaw

All these connections raise possible conflicts of interest, but Brokaw, who left his anchor’s position in 2004 but continues to contribute to NBC reports, would seem to have separated his life as a volunteer from his work as a journalist.

News releases, Internet sites and other sources indicate that Brokaw is an unpaid member of at least 10 not-for-profit boards.

Among his volunteer activities, he’s a trustee at the University of South Dakota, his alma mater.

He’s also on the board of visitors at Howard University’s communications school. And he’s a member of the advisory board of the Committee to Project Journalists.

As a member of the board of director of the Council on Foreign Relations, Brokaw joins a Who’s Who of newsmakers.

Also in the boardroom are former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Colin L. Powell, as well as former U.N. ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke.

Extend Brokaw’s Council connection to the group’s members, and he’s an associate of many headliners, including Angelina Jolie, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams, his replacement as “NBC Nightly News” anchor.

Membership on The Norton Simon Museum board links Brokaw with the actress Candice Bergen.

The American Museum of National History board experience reunites him with Holbrooke. Also on that board are Fiona Druckenmiller, the former power at the Dreyfus Corporation and, like Brokaw, a member of many boards. Lorne Michaels, the producer of “Saturday Night Live,” also serves on the museum’s board.

Membership on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a group that fights poverty in New York City, associates Brokaw with Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, the actress Gwyneth Paltrow and film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Then there’s the Mayo Clinic board, a group that includes former Sen. Thomas Daschle, another South Dakota native.

Daschle’s Mayo membership has been raised as a possible conflict-of-interest obstacle to his becoming Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration.

This would bring up an awkward issue should Daschle be a guest on “Meet the Press.” Mayo trustee Brokaw would himself have a conflict of interest interviewing Mayo trustee Daschle about the conflict of interest.

Best let Chuck Todd, NBC’s political director, step in and grill Daschle.

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