Lester Holt, news anchor for the weekday edition of NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC, received the Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism and gave the keynote speech virtually at the 45th Murrow Symposium.
Originally scheduled for March 2020, the 45th Murrow Symposium, including the Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Known best for anchoring NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, he also anchors Dateline NBC, now in its 29th season. He leads NBC News’ special reports, breaking news, and primetime political coverage. One of Holt’s trademarks is his on-the-ground reporting and his deep commitment to providing viewers with first-person accounts when disaster and tragedy strikes. From the Southern California wildfires to Hurricane Katrina, he has covered more than a dozen natural disasters.
More recently, Holt has led NBC News’ coverage of the coronavirus, anchoring weekly primetime specials featuring real-time information on the pandemic. He also launched “Nightly News: Kids Edition,” a digital newscast aimed to inform and educate children during these difficult times.
Throughout the 2020 election cycle, Holt anchored all of the network’s primetime coverage through the Republican and Democratic conventions, debates, and Election Night. Most notably, Holt served as a co-moderator for the first Democratic debate, which made history as the most-watched Democratic debate ever. Holt also conducted the first one-on-one post-election interview with president-elect, Joe Biden, in November 2020.