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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Yesterday I saw something I hoped I would never see happen.
Someone shot and killed a television reporter and cameraman live on the air.
It is a television journalist’s worst nightmare.
24-year old Alison Parker was the reporter.
27-year old Adam Ward was her photographer.
The journalists for WDBJ were interviewing a city official about tourism and commerce when 41-year old Vester Flanagan walked up, open fire and unloaded 15 rounds into the three victims, emptying the gun’s entire magazine.
The two journalists died at the scene.
The city official is in critical condition.
Vester Flanagan whose TV name was Bryce Williams was a disgruntled former reporter who had worked with both journalists at the same station before being fired for erratic behavior.
The station’s managers and his co-workers say Flanagan was fired because he had become increasingly difficult to work with.
They say he wasn’t a good on-air reporter.
But Flanagan saw it differently.
In a manifesto he reportedly sent to ABC News, Flanagan says he had been discriminated against because he was black and gay.
He reportedly wrote in the manifesto that he had been attacked his entire life by white women and black men.
The station’s general manager says that Flanagan had even filed suit against the station claiming racial discrimination.
The GM, station managers and fellow employees say the claims were nonsense.
A judge later threw out the claim.
In fact, in 2000, Flanagan had filed a similar claim against a Tallahassee television station which, according to his attorney, was settled.
Right after yesterday’s double murder, Flanagan, using his TV name, Bryce Williams, tweeted out his frustrations and posted videos of the shooting.
He wrote on twitter, “Alison made racist comments…. EEOC report filed… They hired her after that??? Adam went to HR on me after working with me one time…. I filmed the shooting see Facebook.”
Fellow employees of WDBJ say Flanagan not only became increasingly difficult to work with but became almost paranoid, obsessed with being a victim of homophobia and/or racism.
His former colleagues of all different ethnicities say they never saw any type of discrimination towards Mr. Flanagan, just that he was a bad reporter.
Psychologists say Flanagan used racism as a cover for his own shortcomings and in so doing his downfall became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The discussion about Flanagan has mainly centered on mental health and whether Flanagan was mentally ill.
The other, lesser discussion, has been whether he was racist.
If one looks objectively at Flanagan’s actions and history, one can’t help but come to the conclusion that both are probably true.
Flanagan killed the two young people because they were white.
He admitted as much.
And yes, anyone who does what he did was also out of their mind.
