The following editorial appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday.

NBC newsman Tom Brokaw signed off the anchor desk Wednesday night. In American living rooms, it will be a good long while before “The NBC Nightly News” seems as much a member of the family.

Maybe never? Brokaw’s retirement and the announced departure of Dan Rather from the top anchor post at CBS likely will change the country’s relationship with the people who deliver the headlines for coast-to-coast audiences.

Is Brokaw’s replacement, Brian Williams, settling in for a two-decade run? That seems unlikely, given the declining market share of network news, the encroachment of cable, and the popular assaults on the credibility of mainstream media.

Ahead for TV viewers may be a more fragmented, changing cast of players delivering the news. If that happens, the nation could look back some years from now and recall what had been lost in the shuffle: the reassuring presence of a Brokaw.

His career spanned a series of incredible historic events — from Watergate, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the Sept. 11 attacks. As a writer, Brokaw focused the nation on the World War II-era Americans he dubbed so memorably as the “greatest generation.”

For the last seven years, the “least flashy” anchor — as one TV critic called him — drew the largest audience. Given that success, maybe those who follow Brokaw — even in a changing TV news landscape — would be smart to emulate him.