Holt is an award-winning journalist at NBC News. He serves as anchor and managing editor of "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt," the network's flagship broadcast, as well as the anchor of “Dateline NBC.” Holt also leads NBC News’ special reports, breaking news and primetime news coverage.
Holt was named “NBC Nightly News” anchor in June 2015 after eight years as anchor of "NBC Nightly News" weekend editions and 12 years as co-anchor of "Weekend TODAY." In addition, Holt has served as principal anchor of "Dateline NBC" since September 2011, and now also anchors “Nightly News Kids Edition,” a digital award-winning newscast aimed to inform and educate children, which he launched at the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Known for his outstanding work in the field, as well as reporting and anchoring breaking news events across the globe, Holt has spent the past four decades in journalism. Most recently, he has been in Tokyo to cover the 2020 Olympic Games as the world was coming together for the first time since the global pandemic. Also, this year, Holt traveled to Geneva for President Biden and Russian President Putin’s in-person summit. Previously this year, he interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris in Guatemala in one of her most significant interviews since she took office and he anchored live from Surfside, Florida, following the deadly condo collapse.
Last year, Holt anchored NBC’s coverage of the 2020 Presidential Election, including Election Night and the days following, the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and the presidential debate and vice presidential debate. Holt also conducted the first interview with President Joe Biden following the election. In 2016, Holt was also selected to moderate the first presidential debate, which continues to hold the record as the most-watched debate in American history.
Holt has distinguished himself as the leading broadcast journalist reporting on the criminal justice system and the efforts to reform it. For the “Justice for All” series he launched, Holt was embedded for three days inside the largest maximum-security prison, Angola, and also anchored the first televised town hall from a maximum-security prison, Sing Sing Correctional Facility.
Before becoming co-anchor of "Weekend TODAY” in 2003, Holt anchored MSNBC’s "Lester Holt Live” and served as a primary anchor for MSNBC's coverage of major news events, including Operation Iraqi Freedom and the war in Afghanistan, as well as coverage of Decision 2000. Holt came to MSNBC after 14 years at WBBM-TV in Chicago. He began his television journalism career as a reporter at WCBS-TV in New York in 1981.
Holt has been recognized with numerous honors, including multiple Emmy Awards and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award. In 2021, he was honored with the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement award. In 2019, he was honored with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism and in 2017, he received the Quinnipiac University’s Fred Friendly First Amendment Award. In 2016, Holt was featured on TIME’s “100 Most Influential People” list and was named “Journalist of the Year” by the National Association of Black Journalists.