Don Lemon
, CNN Newsroom Anchor
Don Lemon anchors CNN Newsroom during weekend prime-time and serves as a correspondent across CNN/U.S. programming. Based in the network’s New York bureau, Lemon joined CNN in September 2006.
A news veteran of Chicago, Lemon reported from Chicago in the days leading up to the 2008 presidential election, including an interview with then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel on the day he accepted the position of Chief of Staff for President-elect Barack Obama. He also interviewed Anne Cooper, the 106-year old voter President-elect Obama highlighted in his election night acceptance speech after he had seen Lemon’s interview with Cooper on CNN.
Lemon has reported and anchored on-the-scene for CNN from many breaking news stories, including the George Zimmerman trial (2013), the Boston marathon bombing (2013), the Philadelphia building collapse (2013), the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (2012), the Colorado Theater Shooting (2012), the death of Whitney Houston, the Inaugural of the 44th President in Washington, D.C., the death of Michael Jackson (2009), Hurricane Gustav in Louisiana (2008) and the Minneapolis bridge collapse (2007).
Lemon has also anchored the network's breaking news coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Arab Spring, the death of Osama Bin Laden and Joplin tornado. Lemon reported for CNN’s documentary Race and Rage: The Beating of Rodney King, which aired 20 years to the day of the beating. He is also known for holding politicians and public officials accountable in his "No Talking Points" segment.
Lemon joined CNN after serving as a co-anchor for the 5 p.m. newscast for NBC5 News in Chicago. He joined the station in August 2003 as an anchor and reporter after working in New York as a correspondent for NBC News, The Today Show and NBC Nightly News. In addition to his reporting in New York, Lemon worked as an anchor on Weekend Today and on MSNBC. While at NBC, Lemon covered the explosion of Space Shuttle Columbia, SARS in Canada and numerous other stories of national and global importance.
In addition to NBC5 and NBC News, Lemon has served as a weekend anchor and general assignment reporter for WCAU-TV, an NBC affiliate in Philadelphia, an anchor and investigative reporter for KTVI-TV in St. Louis and an anchor for WBRC-TV in Birmingham. He began his career at WNYW in New York City as a news assistant while still in college.
In 2009, Ebony named him as one of the Ebony Power 150: the most influential Blacks in America. He has won an Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage of the capture of the Washington, D.C. snipers. He won an Emmy for a special report on real estate in Chicagoland and various other awards for his reporting on the AIDS epidemic in Africa and Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, he won three more local Emmys for his reporting in Africa and a business feature about Craigslist, an online community.
Lemon serves as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, teaching and participating in curriculum designed around new media. He earned a degree in broadcast journalism from Brooklyn College and also attended Louisiana State University.
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We’ve heard for a few days now, people arguing back and forth about whether the religious law in Indiana is discriminatory.
To say that the law is not discriminatory is disingenuous at the very least, at most a flat-out lie.
The root of the law is not as proponents say, to allow someone the religious freedom not to perform a service that goes against their beliefs.
The root of the law is to allow someone the legal ability to impose their religion onto someone else.
Indiana’s governor and others have been harping on the talking point that other states have the same law and that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have signed similar legislation.
Just because they both supported similar legislation years ago doesn’t make it right.
We should take a close look at those states and question both Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton about why they did it and would they support it now.
As someone who was raised in the Christian tradition, I don’t know about you, but I was taught to offer love instead of condemnation.
If I were an owner of a business and I didn’t believe in gay rights, I would probably do what Jesus would do, offer the service in love and pray for what I believed were the sins of my brothers and sisters.
Love the sinner.
Hate the sin.
It should be made clear that the Republicans in the Indiana House had the opportunity to include language that explicitly barred discrimination against the L-G-B-T community.
The Democrats say they proposed it and the Republicans declined.
Now here we are.
I am heartened by the honest people across the country who are vowing to pull their money and business from Indiana unless they correct the legislation.
The state stands to lose millions.
As a matter of fact, today’s front page of the state’s largest newspaper the Indianapolis Star eloquently makes the case against Indiana’s new religious freedom restoration act.
The bold message reads, “FIX THIS NOW.”
The editorial goes on to say, “The consequences will only get worse if our state leaders delay in fixing the deep mess created.”
Dr. King who fought for civil rights for everyone said not so long ago that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
Thank god for that!
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