Holt, Lester Don Jr.
1959-present · Contribution: 1981-present
Became the first African American to solo anchor a major U.S. network’s weekday evening newscast when he took over NBC Nightly News in 2015, a post he held for a decade before moving to lead Dateline NBC full-time
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
Holt dropped out of California State University, Sacramento, in 1979 for a full-time radio reporting job and built a 19-year career at CBS-affiliated stations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago before joining MSNBC in 2000 and NBC News in 2003. Named permanent anchor of NBC Nightly News in June 2015 following Brian Williams’s suspension, Holt became, according to network historians, the fourth solo anchor of the storied franchise after John Chancellor, Tom Brokaw, and Williams himself, and the first Black journalist to hold the role; a 2018 industry poll ranked him the most trusted television news personality in America. He moderated the most-watched presidential debate in U.S. history in September 2016, conducted a consequential 2017 interview with President Trump about the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and won the National Association of Black Journalists’ Journalist of the Year Award in 2016 and the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, before stepping down from Nightly News in May 2025 to anchor Dateline NBC full-time.
Life & background
Born March 8, 1959, on Hamilton Air Force Base in Marin County, California, to a father of African American and a mother of Jamaican descent, Holt grew up in Rancho Cordova, California, and began his broadcasting career at a Sacramento radio station in 1979 before dropping out of college. He worked at CBS-affiliated stations from 1981 to 2000, joined MSNBC and then NBC News, anchored the weekend edition of NBC Nightly News from 2007 to 2015 and its weekday edition from 2015 to 2025, and continues as principal anchor of Dateline NBC, a role he has also held since 2011.
Sources
- Encyclopædia Britannica; NBC News; NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame
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