By michael vivar
NBC Nightly News has been helmed on-screen and editorially by Lester Holt for over ten years. It was a surprise when, on Feb 24, 2025, he announced he was resigning.
Holt's background is humble. He's a second-generation child of immigrants with grandparents hailing from India and Jamaica.
After kicking around as a military kid on various Air Force bases, he completed his educational journey dropping out of CSU, Sacramento as a government major.
Holt's initial broadcasting career was something of a walkabout. He spent time as a San Francisco beat reporter then 20 years in various CBS affiliates.
The combination of a handsome face, mellifluous voice and journalistic chops led him to become one of the hardest working and most trusted personalities on television.
For five years since 2003, Holt was a co-host of the Today show's weekend broadcast, substitute anchor for NBC Nightly News and a regular on other programs.
Lester Holt will still have a presence at NBC for now. He hosts the extremely popular news magazine show, Dateline, along with NBC Nightly News for Kids on YouTube.
News observers speculate Holt's departure is part of a POC purge at the NBC networks along with Joy Reid and Alex Wagner on MSNBC.
Fueling conjecture is the retention of The Morning Joe, which gets lower ratings but whose hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visited President Trump at Mar-a Lago.
There are audiences who posit that Lester Holt's exit from NBC Nightly News taken with these other actions will hurt the journalistic integrity of the broadcast network as a whole.