Lester Holt is a multiple award-winning journalist, news anchor, reporter and actor who has worked for well-known media houses such as WCBS TV, CBS, MSNBC, among others. His remarkable journalistic achievement has made him very popular with many followers and has garnered him some awards and recognition. Read on to get acquainted with his Biography, Ethnicity, Salary, Height, Parents as well as his immediate family.
Lester Holt Biography (Ethnicity)
Lesley Holt Don Junior was born in Marin County, California on March 8, 1959. He was raised with four brothers, although not much is known about them other than his half-brother, Mike Swanigan, who was a radio station employee in Alaska, and the family is due nature was out and about from his father’s work. Lester Holt Jr. is African American but of mixed race, Jamaican, Scottish, English and Indian descent and attends the Manhattan Church of Christ.
Holt grew up partly in Sacramento and attended Cordova High School, making daily announcements over the school’s public address system. He has always been interested in broadcasting and journalism and was once kicked out of a radio station his brother snuck him into when he was 11.
He graduated from high school in 1977 and moved to California State University to study government. While in college, Lester worked as a disc jockey for a country and western station, but he realized that the only way he could get a full-time job was to cover the news. He nevertheless kept the job during his university years.
Lester Holt became a reporter at WCBS-TV in 1981 and later moved to Los Angeles to become a reporter and anchor of a weekend show at KNXT the following year. In 1983 he rejoined WCBS-TV and assumed the status of reporter and program anchor. He spent 14 years at WBBM-TV in Chicago anchoring the nightly news.
Known for his unique baritone voice, the journalist is an active reporter who has given reports from trouble spots such as Somalia, Haiti and even Iraq. Lester starred in an exclusive North Korea feature for NBC News on January 24, 2018, covering a ski resort where South and North Korean Olympians were scheduled to train together.He earned the nickname Iron Pant for his notoriously bold way of asking questions to find answers in answers that are hard to come by. Lester Holt may have been the first black man to moderate a US presidential debate since 1992, when he moderated the 2016 presidential debate between Hilary Clinton and eventual winner Donald Trump.
The award-winning reporter was once embroiled in a controversy with Donald Trump. He was accused of tampering with Trump’s tape in the May 2017 Russia investigation interview in which he discussed the FBI director’s firing. The President had no evidence to support this claim and the video has been online ever since. NBC News did not comment on the controversy, citing a “no response” comment by their media spokesperson.
The avid broadcaster has accumulated a host of notable awards and honors for its contributions in broadcasting and journalism. His awards include the 1990 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, doctorates from Pepperdine University and California State University. Holt was inducted into the California Hall of Fame on October 28, 2015. The following year, he was named Alan B. Dumont Broadcaster of the Year by Montclair State University and Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2016.
The reporter has also been featured in films such as The Pictorial (1993), US Marshals (1998) and Uranus (1996), as well as the popular TV series; Law & Order Special Victims Unit among others.
salary and wealth
Lester’s net worth is estimated at $12 million, while he earns an annual salary of $4.5 million from his work as a broadcaster. Since he hasn’t retired yet, his earnings are likely to continue to rise, meaning these numbers won’t last that long.
Family – parents, wife, son and daughter
Lesley Holt Jnr was born June DeRosario and Lester Don Holt Snr, his father was an Air Force Sergeant, his mother was a regional planner. Don Holt Snr. was an African American, while the mother is said to be of Jamaican descent.
Lester Holt is happily married to Carol Hagen, a real estate agent whom he met in 1980. The couple tied the knot 2 years after 1982 on May 8th and have been married ever since, despite the tension and unpredictability of their different careers, a feat so rare in the world today.
They were blessed with two amazing and outgoing children; Cameron and Stefan Holt. All boys, the couple has no daughter, but they have a daughter-in-law who is married to their son Stefan. The two met at Pepperdine University in Malibu before marrying in July 2012.
Like his father, Stefan is also a reporter and works for WNBC. Lester and Carol Hagen became grandparents when Stefan’s wife
Morgan, their daughter-in-law, gave birth on September 5, 2017.
Cameron, the last of the Holt family financial analysts, holds two degrees from Stanford University and works for Morgan Stanley as an equity derivatives trader.
