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Lou Dobbs

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Louis Dobbs (born September 24, 1945) is the anchor and managing editor of CNN's hour-long weeknight program Lou Dobbs Tonight, an editorial columnist, and host of a syndicated radio show.

Dobbs was born in Childress, Texas and raised in Rupert, Idaho. He attended Minico High School in Rupert, serving as student body president in 1963. He later earned a degree in economics from Harvard University.

Career

Dobbs joined CNN when it launched in 1980, serving as its chief economics correspondent and as host of the business news program Moneyline on CNN. Dobbs also served as a corporate executive for CNN, as its executive vice president and as a member of CNN’s executive committee. He also founded CNNfn (CNN financial news), serving as its president and anchoring the program, Business Unusual, which examined business creativity and leadership. In 1999, Dobbs started Space.com, a web-based multimedia company dedicated to space education and entertainment.

Dobbs left CNN in 2000, reportedly due to heated clashes with its president, Rick Kaplan, one of which actually occurred on-air when Kaplan wanted to cut from Moneyline to a live address by Bill Clinton at Columbine, which Dobbs believed was a staged event and not newsworthy. [1] Dobbs returned the following year at the behest of his friend and CNN founder Ted Turner, becoming host and managing editor of the new, more general news program Lou Dobbs Moneyline, later renamed Lou Dobbs Tonight. Dobbs also hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report, and is a regular columnist in Money magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and the New York Daily News.

Political positions

In the 2000s, Dobbs has used his programs and columns to express his strongly-held views on several subjects. He has become particularly noted for two positions. Concerning international trade he leans towards protectionism and is particularly wary of outsourcing and offshoring. Dobbs favors immigration reduction, is harshly opposed to illegal immigration, and supports stringent enforcement at United States borders, whether by federal or state action, or by private groups like the controversial Minuteman Project. He has been accused of inciting xenophobia by many, including a variety of commentators, including James K. Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute[2]. Additionally Dobbs states that "I don't think there should be a St Patrick's Day" and "I don't think that we should have any flag flying in this country except the flag of the United States." A web protest is currently staged to attack AOL, the parent company of Time Warner, to force CNN to cancel Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Lou Dobbs Tonight frequently features related issues under the ongoing billboards "Exporting America" and "Broken Borders." The newscast often couples references to "illegal aliens" with the word "invasion." Dobbs dismisses the allegedly excessive or misguided concern for language of "political correctness" in the segments billboarded "P.C. Nation."

Dobbs' stance on trade has earned plaudits from some trade union activists, on the traditional political left, while his stance on immigration tends to appeal to the right. Dobbs is a self-described "lifelong Republican" [3] who became disenchanted with the policies of George W. Bush's administration.

Lou Dobbs on an ongoing basis refers to the Peoples Republic of China as "RED COMMUNIST CHINA", and in his "Broken Borders" segments makes virtually no references to the worlds longest undefended 5000 mile border between Canada and the United States.

Awards

Dobbs has won numerous major awards for his television journalism, most notably an Emmy, and a Cable Ace award. He received the George Foster Peabody Award for his coverage of the 1987 stock market crash. He has also received the Luminary Award of the Business Journalism Review in 1990, the Horatio Alger Association Award for Distinguished Americans in 1999, and the National Space Club Media Award in 2000. The Wall Street Journal has named Dobbs "TV's Premier Business News Anchorman". Dobbs was also named "Father of the Year" by the National Father's Day Committee in 1993.

Associations

Dobbs serves or has served on the boards of the Society of Professional Journalists Foundation, the Horatio Alger Association, the National Space Foundation and the Imaginova Corporation, formerly known as Space.com, in which he owns a minority stake, as he does in Integrity Bank. He is also a member of the Planetary Society, the Overseas Press Club, the American Economic Association and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Books

  • Exporting America : Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas (Warner Business Books, 2004) ISBN 0446577448
  • Space: The Next Business Frontier by Dobbs and HP Newquist (Atria, 2001) ISBN 0743423895
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