Lou Dobbs Quits - CNN Response

After nearly three decades anchoring an evening program on CNN, Lou Dobbs has decided to step away from his CNN anchor desk to focus on his role as a commentator and advocacy journalist on his daily radio talk show, as well as to pursue new avenues to contribute to the national discussion on important social, political and economic issues.

CNN President Jon Klein issued the following statement this evening:

“Lou Dobbs is a valued founding member of the CNN family. For decades, Lou fearlessly and tirelessly pursued some of the most important and complex stories of our time, often well ahead of the pack. All of us will miss his appetite for big ideas, the megawatt smile and larger than life presence he brought to our newsroom, and we’re grateful to have known and worked with him over the years. With characteristic forthrightness, Lou has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere. We respect his decision and wish him, Debi, and his family the very best.”

Lou Dobbs has anchored CNN’s daily program “Lou Dobbs Tonight” since June 2003.  Prior to that, he anchored “The Moneyline News Hour with Lou Dobbs,” which he rejoined in May 2001, after a two year absence. Lou joined CNN at its inception and began anchoring for CNN in New York when the network first launched in 1980. Lou Dobbs was in charge of CNN’s business news programming from 1980-1999 and served on the network’s executive committee from 1989-1999.

Dobbs anchors a nationally syndicated financial news radio report, “The Lou Dobbs Financial Report,” and he is the host of the highly successful national radio program, “The Lou Dobbs Show,” which launched in March 2008. Dobbs’ radio shows have more than 400 affiliates and reach nearly five million people weekly.

Dobbs has won nearly every major award for his work in television news. In 2005, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Dobbs the Emmy for Lifetime Achievement. The previous year, the National Television Academy awarded Lou Dobbs Tonight an Emmy Award for “Exporting America.” He received the George Foster Peabody Award for his coverage of the 1987 stock market crash. In 1990, he was given the Luminary Award by the Business Journalism Review for his “visionary work, which changed the landscape of business journalism in the 1980s.”

Dobbs has written three best-selling books. “Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit” in 2007, “War on the Middle Class” in 2006, and “Exporting America” in 2004. He has also been a columnist for Money Magazine, U.S. News and World Report and the New York Daily News.

Lou Dobbs Tonight features a signature series of ongoing special reports including “Broken Borders (which focuses on border security and illegal immigration), “War on the Middle Class,” “Exporting America,” (which focuses on the outsourcing of American jobs) and “Failing Grades” (which on the crisis in public education.

Dobbs has received the Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership in Media Award at the 2004 Albert Schweitzer Leadership Awards Dinner for his commitment to helping high school students seek out, recognize and develop leadership potential. In 1999, he received the Horatio Alger Association Award for Distinguished Americans and, in 2000, the National Space Club Media Award. Dobbs was named “Father of the Year” by the National Father’s Day Committee in 1993.