Lester Holt- Meet the popular and beloved Dateline and NBC Nightly News anchor

Lester Holt is one of the most prominent news anchors currently working with the broadcast channel NBC. He started his career with CBS and after spending almost two decades switched to NBC. For his excellent service to the field of journalism. Holt has received several accolades. Lester is best known for the network’s flagship broadcast “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt”. Follow this article for more details related to Lester Holt’s net worth in 2023, personal life, professional career, and much more.

Lester Holt Salary 2023

One of the best news reporters, Lester Holt is also counted among the highest-paid news anchors with an annual salary of about $4 million. His net worth is estimated to be around $48 million which Holt has created solely from his career in journalism.

Lester Holt’s Personal Biography

Lester Holt was born on March 8, 1959, in Marin County, California, to June and Lester Don Holt Sr. His father was in the Air Force and stationed at a base in Alaska during the Vietnam War. Lester has three older siblings and it was his older brother who introduced Holt to broadcasting at a young age. Holt attended Cordova High School and later enrolled at California State University, Sacramento. However, he dropped out of college and later received an honorary degree in 2015.

Since 1982, Lester Holt has been married to Carol Hagen and they have two sons together. His older son Stefan is also a journalist, serving currently as a news anchor at NBC affiliate WMAQ in Chicago. Holt resides in Manhattan along with his wife.

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Professional Career in Journalism

College Years and CBS

Lester Holt started his first job on the air at a radio station while he was attending college. However, he soon dropped out of college and started his journey to pursue a full-time career in journalism.

Holt’s first job as a reporter began after he was hired by WCBS-TV in New York City in 1981. In the next year, Holt worked with CBS only but was sent to Los Angeles to serve as a reporter and weekend anchor on KNXT. Holt returned to WCBS-TV in 1983 and started working as a reporter and weekend anchor. He later moved to Chicago in 1986 to work with WBBM-TV for the next 14 years. With CBS, Lester spent 19 years as a reporter and anchor before leaving the channel in 2000.

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Career with NBC News

In 2000, Holt joined MSNBC and after working with the channel for three years, he undertook full-time duties. He became a substitute anchor for the news programs NBC Nightly News and Today. Holt later anchored a two-hour daily newscast on MSNBC and also became a co-anchor of the Weekend Today in 2003. In 2007, Holt assumed the role of NBC Nightly News weekend anchor and after anchoring the show for eight years, he became a permanent anchor of the weeknight edition.

In his career with NBC, Holt received honors and praise for his work as a journalist. His notable works include the 2003 report from the Iraqi border, the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and the 2009 crash of an Air France jet over the Atlantic. Lester’s reports from Cairo on civil unrest in Egypt in 2011, the report from Paris on the terrorist attacks at Charlie Hebdo in 2015, and many other works were also praiseworthy. In 2016, when Holt led a presidential debate, he asked candidate Donald Trump some very good questions for which he gathered significant admiration. At present, Holt is a weeknight anchor for NBC Nightly News (since 2015) and an anchor for Dateline NBC (since 2011).

Anchor of NBC Nightly News

When Lester became the full-time anchor for the most-watched evening newscast of America “NBC Nightly News,” he created history. With this role, he became the first African-American solo weeknight anchor to host a major network newscast. Before getting this position, Holt had served eight years as anchor of the weekend edition of the show. Other than the anchor, Holt was also assigned the position of managing editor of the show. NBC Nightly News is broadcast live over the NBC stations from 6:30 pm to 7:00 pm ET and is still one of the most-watched evening newscasts in the country in 2023. The program is broadcast seven days a week with Lester Holt as the weeknight anchor, and José Díaz-Balart as Saturday, and Kate Snow as the Sunday news presenter.

Holt is also the host of the NBC Nightly News: Kids Edition which features stories for children aged six to sixteen years. The program is premiered every Thursday on NBC News’ YouTube channel and occasional editions of the show have aired on Saturdays on NBC since 2020 as well.

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Awards & Honors in Holt’s Name

Here is the complete list of awards and honors received by Lester Holt in his anchoring career of more than four decades now.

1. Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for CBS’s 48 Hours: No Place Like Home (1990)
2. Honorary Doctorate from Pepperdine University (2012), California State University (2015), Rutgers University (2020), and Villanova University (2023)
3. California Hall of Fame Induction (28 October 2015) (2016)
4. Alan B. DuMont Broadcaster of the Year from Montclair State University
5. NABJ Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists (2016)
6. Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism (2019)
7. Larry Foster Award for Integrity in Public Communication from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication (2023)

Lester Holt Movies & TV Shows

Holt has given cameo appearances in certain movies and television shows as mentioned below.

• The Fugitive (1993)
• Primal Fear (1996)
• Due South (1996)
• U.S. Marshals (1998)
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999)
• Early Edition (1999)
• Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show (2006, 2007, & 2008)
• 30 Rock (2007)
• Mystery of the Crystal Skulls (2008)
• Warehouse 13 (2012)

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Frequently Asked Questions