David McClure Brinkley was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997. From 1956 through 1970, he co-anchored NBC's top rated nightly news program, The Huntley–Brinkley Report, with Chet Huntley and thereafter appeared as co-anchor or commentator on its successor, NBC Nightly News, through the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, Brinkley was host of the popular Sunday This Week with David Brinkley program and a top commentator on election night coverage for ABC News. Over the course of his career, Brinkley received ten Emmy Awards, three George Foster Peabody Awards, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Filmography

• 2025Breakdown: 1975 — Self - Co-Host, NBC Nightly News (archive footage)
• 1988Powaqqatsi — (archive footage)
• 1969Gunsmith of Williamsburg — Narrator

Appearances as themselves (17)

• Whose Vote Counts, Explained — Self (archive footage)
• 2018Hope & Fury: MLK, the Movement and the Media — Self (archive footage)
• 2017Agnelli — Self (voice)
• The Seventies — Self
• 2014Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words — Self (archive footage)
• The Sixties — Self (archive footage)
• 2013Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic — Self (archive footage)
• 19974 Little Girls — Self - Reports on Chambliss Trial (archive footage) (uncredited)
• 1997The Trial of Adolf Eichmann — Self - Host
• 1996All Power to the People! — Self (archive footage)
• This Week — Self
• 1976NBC: The First Fifty Years — Self
• NBC Nightly News — Self
• 1968The Movie Orgy — Self (archive footage)
• Tonight Starring Jack Paar — Self
• Huntley-Brinkley Report — Himself
• The Emmy Awards — Self