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Lester Holt Drops GOP Registration

by richard117201

NBC Anchor Talks Race in Advance of News Special

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NBC Anchor Talks Race in Advance of News Special

“NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt has switched his registration from Republican to “blank,” or no party, a New York state Board of Elections spokesman told Journal-isms on Monday.

Holt’s party affiliation was a minor issue in the 2016 presidential campaign, when then-candidate Donald Trump falsely stated that Holt, about to moderate Trump’s first presidential debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton, was a Democrat.

“Trump’s comments to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, which were offered without any evidence to support the claim, are part of a time-honored tradition of alleging moderator bias and expectations-setting before a presidential debate,” Zeke J. Miller reported on Sept. 1, 2016, for Time.

“ ‘By the way, Lester is a Democrat. It’s a phony system. They are all Democrats. It’s a very unfair system,’ Trump said of the debate moderators.”

However, Miller wrote, “New York State voter registration documents show that Holt has been a registered Republican in the state since 2003. . . .”

In a telephone interview arranged to promote “Hope & Fury: MLK, The Movement and the Media,” a two-hour special to air this weekend on NBC and MSNBC, Journal-isms asked Holt whether the disclosure of his party registration had affected his professional life.

Holt is moderating the production, described as “a new documentary film that examines how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and leaders of the civil rights movement used the power of print and visual media, especially television, to awaken America to the shame and injustice of racial inequality.”

Holt told Journal-isms, “I don’t discuss my politics. I’m an American” who leaves politics behind when he is on the job. But he asked whether his interviewer had checked his party registration.

“The voter left the party selection area of the form blank which means they are not enrolled in any party,” according to a written explanation from the board of elections.

Lester Holt was accused by Donald Trump of being a Democrat, like HJillary Clinton, right. (Credit: YouTube)
Lester Holt was accused by Donald Trump of being a Democrat, like Hillary Clinton, right. They are shown at a Sept. 26, 2016, debate. (Credit: YouTube)

Holt, 59, is the first African American solo anchor on a broadcast network evening news program. He was also asked about his role as a black journalist, his program’s invocation of “breaking news” to introduce events that had taken place hours before, his thoughts on progress on newsroom diversity, how long he plans to stay in the job — and even who chooses his well-tailored outfits.

Holt was only too happy to volunteer his “guilty pleasure” for the Italian suits of Ermenegildo Zegna. And he said he does not know how long he will stay on the job.

Last month, in a story about the 70th anniversary of the “NBC Nightly News” program and its predecessors, Holt was quoted as saying, “There were periods of my career where there was just pressure to define myself as a black journalist and I pushed back at that because I knew I wanted to succeed and not be defined by my color. I think if any of us are going to succeed, it’s going to be on a broad scale.”

Asked to elaborate, Holt seemed to equate being a “black journalist” with covering only black issues, although he defined the term as simply being a journalist who is black.

“I’m a good journalist. I can cover any story,” he said. “That’s the level” on which he wants to succeed, he said.

Had Holt ever had occasion to go to management on a race-related coverage or newsroom issue? Holt cited an example from Chicago, where he spent 14 years at WBBM-TV. African American reporters together complained that blacks were always portrayed in negative images, such as in handcuffs, he replied. However, Holt did not say that he had initiated such conversations.

“I haven’t had that kind of issue at NBC,” where the atmosphere is collaborative, Holt added. He said staff members of various backgrounds contribute to news discussions. “People don’t want to tune in to television and see a world they don’t recognize,” he explained. The diversity imperative requires vigilance so that it is implemented every day, Holt said.

Asked why there isn’t more diversity today, Holt said that the late ’80s and early ’90s saw more awareness of the lack of diversity in the news business. “NABJ and others were standing up,” he said.

Holt was asked to respond to observations that NBC, like some other networks, abuses the term “breaking news” to introduce the nightly newscasts, featuring developments that are hours old. Broadcast newswriter Mervin Block wrote in 2016, “Lester Holt sure knows how to make news seem exciting. He does that by introducing a story on the newscast he anchors, NBC’s ‘Nightly News,‘ as ‘breaking news.’ But often the story has already been broken, even shattered. . . .”

Joy Reid-MLK quoteHolt said that to him, “breaking news” applies to stories that “still have moving parts,” where there are “still developing components” and facts being discovered.

He wound down the 20-minute conversation touting the freshness of the upcoming television special. “What is different is that it takes notable events, looking at it from the lens of a television camera,” he said. It examines steps the civil rights movement took to attract the attention of the news media.

Many might not realize that the movement “really propelled the evening news,” prompting an expansion from 15 minutes to half an hour, Holt said.

The special is executive-produced by Andy Lack, chairman of NBC News, who oversees the network’s broadcast news, digital content and cable channel MSNBC. It has an African American co-producer, Phil Bertelsen, along with Rachel Dretzin, and features several historians, activists and journalists.

The two-hour special marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of King in Memphis, on April 4, 1968, when Lack was a student at Boston University, Chris Ariens noted for TVNewser.

Holt said the special resonates personally. “I stand on the shoulders of many of [those] in the civil rights movement. . . . Those two hours had a deeply personal impression on me.”

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1 comment

Stephhanie (Colbert) Stradford March 30, 2018 at 3:19 pm

Thank you Richard Prince for sharing this Good News. As usual, you are filling the journalism gap and paving the way for future generations. God bless.

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