Tom/Sawyer

"This is beneath comment" sniffs a Tom Brokaw flack.

Rush & Molloy NYDN: He’s one of journalism’s most beloved and respected men, but someone appears to have it in for Tom Brokaw. Look up the former NBC News anchor on Wikipedia and you’ll find a review of his Emmy-winning reports, his best-selling books, his 20 honorary degrees. Until recently, you also would have found this sentence: “He had been married to Meredith Lynn Auld (a former Miss South Dakota and author) from 1962 until 2007, when an alleged affair between Brokaw and Diane Sawyer ended their marriage.”The Brokaws’ marriage is very much intact (a Google image search shows them arm in arm at events throughout 2008 and 2009). Likewise, ABC News’ Sawyer remains happily married to director Mike Nichols.A rep for Brokaw said he “burst out laughing” when he heard about the supposed affair. Contacted in the arctic reaches of Finland, Sawyer sent back word through her rep that, “as cute as Tom is, she laughed so hard she nearly fell off the icebreaker she’s traveling on.”The purported affair, anonymously added to Brokaw’s bio on Feb. 27, was deleted after five days. Wikipedia Foundation spokesman Jay Walsh tells us the post “would constitute a ‘vandal edit’” but doubted the vandal could be found.