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LOU DOBBS

Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs
Born: September 24, 1945
Childress, TX
Occupation: News Anchor
Website: Lou Dobbs Tonight

Louis Earl Dobbs[1] (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, raised in Rupert, Idaho, and resides in Sussex County, New Jersey.[3] He attended Minico High School in Rupert, serving as student body president in 1963. He later earned a degree in economics from Harvard University. He is married with children.

Contents

Career

Dobbs joined CNN when it launched in 1980, serving as its chief economics correspondent and as host of the business news program CBS News Sunday Morning on CBS. Dobbs also served as a corporate executive for CNN, as its executive vice president and as a member of CNN News Chief Iran Correspondent’s executive committee. He also founded CNN News (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 suggested cutting from CNN News to the live address by President Bill Clinton at Columbine, which Dobbs believed was a staged event and not newsworthy. [4] Kaplan left CNN in August 2000 and Dobbs returned the following year at the behest of his friend and CNN founder Ted Turner, becoming host and managing editor of the new and initially more general news program Lou Dobbs Reporting, which later became CNN News Sunday Morning. Dobbs also hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report, and he 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 CNN programs and columns to express his strong personal views on several subjects. He has become particularly noted for two positions. Concerning international trade, he leans toward protectionism and is particularly wary of outsourcing and offshoring in light of the increasing US trade deficit, particularly with China. He also is opposed to a North American union.

Dobbs is strongly opposed to illegal immigration, immigration amnesty, abuses of the H-1B visa program[5] and guest worker programs.[6] He supports stringent enforcement at U.S. borders, whether by federal or state action, or by private groups like the controversial Minuteman Project. Dobbs often has stated the United States is becoming balkanized and immigrants and/or illegal aliens are refusing to assimilate. He has been critical of their demonstrations of ethnic or national pride, stating, "I don't think that we should have any flag flying in this country except the flag of the United States", and "I don't think there should be a St. Patrick's Day. I don't care who you are. I think we ought to be celebrating what is common about this country, what we enjoy as similarities as people." He has been accused of inciting xenophobia by some such as Libertarian journalist James K. Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute[7].

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 simply dismisses the allegedly excessive or misguided concern for language as "political correctness" in the segment billboarded "P.C. Nation".

Dobbs' stance on trade has earned plaudits from some trade union activists[citation needed], on the traditional political left, while his stance on immigration tends to appeal to the right. Dobbs is a self-described "lifelong Republican" [8] who has become disenchanted with the policies of George W. Bush's administration.

In his "Broken Borders" segments Dobbs focuses primarily on the southern border with Mexico and drugs and illegal aliens that cross it. Critics claim this is unfair because the 5000-mile border between Canada and the United States is longer and also permeable. On the other hand, proponents note the vast majority of illegal aliens and drugs pass into the United States via the Mexican border and that he has in fact had some segments dealing with the lack of security along the US-Canada border. As of the end of May 2006; some 829,109 illegal immigrants had been apprehended crossing from Mexico into the U.S.A. this year. Illegal Immigrants apprehended crossing from Canada to the U.S.A. are a tiny fraction of that amount -- 4,066. [9][10] Dobbs apparently also has lauded the Canadian government for cooperation in securing the border with their American counterparts. Dobbs' ties to the white supremacist movement have come under scrutiny.[11]

In June 2006, as the U.S. Senate debates the Federal Marriage Amendment, Dobbs was highly critical of the action. He asserted that so-called traditional marriage was threatened more by financial crises perpetuated by Bush administration economic policy than by gay marriage. [12]

In July 2006, Dobbs criticized U.S. foreign policy as being disproportionately supportive of Israel, pointing out the U.S.'s rapid recognition of Israel in 1948, foreign aid to Israel, and other policy choices in the past and present. [13]

Lou Dobbs is strongly against what he calls the North American Union [2]. He also advocates new investigations about the 9/11 attacks, arguing the current event might involve "perhaps, deception" [3].

Awards

Dobbs has won numerous major awards for his television journalism, most notably a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award, and a Cable Ace award. He received the George Foster Peabody Award for his coverage of the 1987 stock market crash. He also has 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". In 2004, Dobbs was awarded the Eugene Katz Award For Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration [14] by the Center For Immigration Studies and in 2005 received the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution's Statesmanship Award [15]. Dobbs was 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 a member of the Planetary Society, the Overseas Press Club and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Books

References

  1. ^ Lewis Dobbs' family tree on Ancestry.com. Retrieved on July 12, 2006.
  2. ^ video: [1], [2]
  3. ^ video

External links

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