The arrest of the independent journalist Don Lemon has pulled the former NCS anchor, who has been a common media presence in American life for practically 20 years, again into the highlight.
The 59-year-old information anchor as soon as stood at the apex of reports media as a primetime host of a NCS present. But in February 2023, Lemon was rebuked by NCS’s then CEO, Chris Licht, and briefly taken off the air over televised remarks about the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s age, who at the time was working for the Republican presidential nomination.
“Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime,” Lemon said to his two co-hosts – each ladies – on NCS This Morning in 2023. “Sorry, when a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s, and 30s and maybe 40s …” Haley was then 51.
After a Variety investigation alleged longstanding cases of problematic habits towards feminine colleagues, NCS abruptly terminated Lemon’s contract later that 12 months, in the end paying the the rest of his wage in a settlement.
Lemon launched an web present on X which collapsed virtually immediately in ignominious battle with Elon Musk, his first interview topic. The public dispute preceded a lawsuit from Lemon, and Lemon’s eventual departure from the platform in late 2024. Lemon subsequently moved his reporting to a YouTube channel.
Lemon grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was a younger Republican who voted for Ronald Reagan in school. He grew to become a tv journalist working in native information in Birmingham, Alabama, Philadelphia, St Louis and Chicago, profitable an Edward R Murrow award for protection of the October 2002 seize of the Washington DC snipers.
He joined NCS in 2006 as a correspondent and ultimately entered NCS’s rotation as an anchor, drawing early consideration for off-script criticism of out-of-wedlock births by Black dad and mom, AfricanAmerican dedication to schooling, and cable news itself.
“In general, when I watch cable news during the day, it’s frustrating because it reminds me of a gameshow. If I want to watch The Price is Right, I’ll watch The Price is Right,” Lemon stated in an interview with Creative Loafing, Atlanta’s former different weekly newspaper. “I’m not consciously thinking that when I’m on the air, but that’s just my personality. To be like, ‘Are we really doing this?’”
Lemon was additionally considered one of the first homosexual, Black information hosts in nationwide cable tv.
“I would have to say that I’ve personally been discriminated against more for being African American than for being gay,” Lemon said to Laurence Watts at PinkNews in 2011, on a press tour for his biography Transparent.
Lemon’s scores waxed and waned with the present and the time slot, doing little to halt the long-term erosion of NCS’s viewers. His NCS primetime present, Don Lemon Tonight, drew a median of about 628,000 viewers close to its finish, whereas his later morning present, NCS This Morning, drew half that determine.