{"id":7972,"date":"2015-06-18T21:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-06-19T02:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=7972"},"modified":"2015-06-19T20:01:42","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T01:01:42","slug":"feder-flashback-when-lester-holt-replaced-another-anchor-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2015\/06\/18\/feder-flashback-when-lester-holt-replaced-another-anchor-giant\/","title":{"rendered":"Feder flashback: When Lester Holt replaced another anchor giant"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tim<\/a>

<\/a> Tim Weigel, Lester Holt, Linda MacLennan and Steve Baskerville<\/p><\/div>\n

Thursday\u2019s official announcement<\/a> that Lester Holt had been named permanent anchor of \"NBC Nightly News\" marked the culmination of a remarkable career for the veteran broadcast journalist and former Chicago television newsman.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLester is the perfect person to meet the moment,\u201d NBC News chairman Andrew Lack said in tapping Holt to replace Brian Williams after a four-month on-air tryout.\u00a0Holt becomes the first African-American solo anchor of a weekday network nightly newscast.<\/em><\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, Holt also was perfect person to meet the moment at CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2, when he succeeded another iconic anchorman \u2014 Bill Kurtis. While ratings remained elusive for the 10 p.m. newscast Holt anchored with Linda MacLennan, his 14-year run in Chicago set him on the path to network success and national stardom.<\/em><\/p>\n

Holt\u2019s legacy here includes a legion of fans and his Chicago-born son, Stefan Holt, who\u2019s now the weekday morning news anchor at NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is my Sun-Times column of April 12, 1995. (Posted with permission.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Lester Holt\u2019s Patience Pays Off at Channel 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

As eager as Lester Holt was to ascend to the 10 p.m. anchor throne at WBBM-Channel 2, he recalled the lesson of Deborah Norville.<\/p>\n

Mindful that viewers never forgave Norville for appearing to overthrow Jane Pauley from the \u201cToday\u201d show, Holt was determined not to be seen as plotting against Bill Kurtis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never wanted it perceived that I was pushing Bill out the door because you don\u2019t push a guy like that out the door,\u201d Holt said Tuesday on the phone from San Francisco while vacationing with his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven as this day became clearer, I said: \u2018Look, when he\u2019s ready is soon enough. None of us has anything to gain by making this look like he\u2019s dumped.\u2019 So I was very, very patient about it. When it was going to happen, it was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holt\u2019s patience finally paid off Monday when Kurtis announced that he was stepping down as the CBS-owned station\u2019s 10 p.m. news anchor to concentrate on his independent production company. While Kurtis will continue to anchor with Mary Ann Childers at 6 p.m., Holt takes over Channel 2\u2019s 10 p.m. newscast alongside Linda MacLennan, effective May 1.<\/p>\n

Channel 2 news director John Lansing said he was \u201cthrilled to have a journalist of the caliber of Lester Holt. He along with Bill Kurtis are the only 10 p.m. anchor people that I know of in this town who regularly are out on the street reporting. I believe it is critical to our eventual success to continue that tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holt said he, too, places a premium on reporting.<\/p>\n

\"Lester<\/a>

Lester Holt<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMy experience in reporting really follows the standard that Bill laid down in that the 10 o\u2019clock anchor is a reporter,\u201d Holt said. \u201cAll you have to do is flip on A&E or PBS, and you\u2019ll see Bill Kurtis is still the quintessential anchor\/reporter. I\u2019ve reported big stories from around the country and around the world. I\u2019d like to think I bring all that to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

A native of the San Francisco area, Holt, 36, made his television debut at age 16 on a public affairs program on KCRA-TV in Sacramento, Calif. After switching to radio, he dropped out of California State University to join KCBS-AM in San Francisco as a reporter in 1979. He\u2019s been with CBS ever since.<\/p>\n

After two stints at WCBS-TV in New York and one at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, Holt signed on at Channel 2 here in August 1986.<\/p>\n

Under his new arrangement, Holt will continue to anchor Channel 2\u2019s 90-minute afternoon news block and report for the station\u2019s \u201cNews Extra\u201d unit. By adding what he calls \u201cthe big show\u201d at 10 p.m., Holt inherits the challenge of boosting the station\u2019s ratings from a distant third place.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The ratings] have me as frustrated as I\u2019ve been in a long time,\u201d Holt said. \u201cI think Channel 2 is doing some great television now, and we\u2019re getting better every day. I\u2019m really proud of some of the stuff we do. But to see the ratings, you shake your head and think: \u2018My God, what do we have to do? Maybe we do have to go back to sensationalism.\u2019 I\u2019m not suggesting that, but in frustration sometimes you say that to yourself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last four or five years, we reinvented ourselves a couple of times. I\u2019m not saying any one of those was necessarily bad or good, but there\u2019ve been a lot of changes at Channel 2, and it\u2019s time to steady the course, do what we\u2019re doing to do and be what we\u2019re going to be. I just cross my fingers that [CBS brass in] New York gives us enough time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I can think is that it is a long-term build. It doesn\u2019t take long to shake people\u2019s trust, but it takes a long time to get it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/a>

Bill Kurtis and Lester Holt (1986)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday\u2019s official announcement that Lester Holt had been named permanent anchor of \"NBC Nightly News\" marked the culmination of a remarkable career for the veteran broadcast journalist and former Chicago television newsman. \u201cLester is the perfect person to meet the moment,\u201d NBC News chairman Andrew Lack said in tapping Holt to replace Brian Williams after... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7972"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7986,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7972\/revisions\/7986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}