Lou Dobbs

Louis Carl " Lou " Dobbs (* September 24, 1945 in Childress, Texas) is an American journalist. He was known primarily for his many years of service as a moderator of economic programs of the news channel CNN.

Life

Lou Dobbs was born as the son of the entrepreneur Frank Dobbs and his wife Lydia Mae Hensley, a bookkeeper. Had to log in as the business of the parents, a propane gas act, bankruptcy Dobbs moved at the age of twelve years of Rupert, Idaho. He attended Minico High School in Minidoka County and later Harvard University, where in 1967 he earned a bachelor's degree in economics. After graduating, Dobbs worked first for projects to combat poverty in Boston and Washington, DC, and later as a consultant for the Union Bank in Los Angeles.

1969 Dobbs married Debi Lee Segura, a little later, the first of four children was born. Despite its good earnings in the case of Union Bank, he decided to pursue a career as a journalist. 1970 the family moved to Yuma ( Arizona), where Dobbs as a correspondent of the radio station KBLU -AM on police and fire operations. In the following years, Dobbs worked as a reporter in Phoenix, and for the station KING - TV in Seattle.

1979 Dobbs was hired by an employee of the media entrepreneur Ted Turner as employees for the newly founded CNN, the 1980 broadcasting resumed. When CNN Dobbs acted initially as a financial expert of the transmitter. In this capacity, he chaired for many years the shipments Money Line and Business Unusual. He held office from time to time as Vice Chairman of the transmitter and sat on the board, he also founded the CNN offshoot CNNfn.

After a dispute with the CNN - director Kaplan, the Dobbs accused of excessive proximity to the then U.S. President Clinton and a partisan reporting in its favor, he left the station. He took over the role of CEO of the Internet startup Space.com, a website that deals with space issues after his retirement.

2001, a year after Kaplan's departure from CNN, Dobbs returned at the request of Ted Turner to the transmitter back on, he hosted the political broadcast Lou Dobbs Tonight. Since March 2008, he also hosted a four-hour working day broadcast radio show, The Lou Dobbs Show. Due to some controversial statements on illegal immigration, economic policy among U.S. Presidents Bush and Obama and allegedly forged birth certificate Obama's he became more and more criticism. According to the company, there was also in his own transmitter demands for his resignation. On 11 November 2009 he announced on his show, now not to be further worked for CNN. The contract with the station that still had a run to 2011, was dissolved by mutual consent.

Political positions

In business matters Dobbs was originally oriented conservative. Meanwhile, he is in favor of minimum wages. He opposed the tax cuts of the Bush administration, of which in his opinion, benefited only a minority. He also criticized in recent years, the " capitalist economic policies " with their phenomena such as globalization and oil drilling off the U.S. coast.

While Dobbs was an avowed supporter of the Republican party in earlier years, he has reiterated its partisan unfettered way younger years. In 2000, he had supported the presidential candidacy of George W. Bush with a donation of $ 1,000.

Another issue that often takes up Dobbs, is the threat that his view of illegal immigration to the United States, especially from the from Mexico. Criticism he reaps in this context because of the aggressive manner in which he tries to prove the correctness of his position. So claimed Dobbs ' in 2005, the illegal emigration have contributed to the dramatic spread of leprosy in the United States; a report in the New York Times pointed out that these and other allegations Dobbs were incorrect. Furthermore, he had claimed in 2003 that a third of all prisoners in the U.S. prisoners were illegal immigrants. However, there were, for example, in 2000 only 6.4% of all prisoners in the state and federal prisons persons without permanent residence permit, at a level of 6.8% of the total population.

Awards

For his journalistic work Dobbs was awarded a number of prizes. So with the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award and a Cable Ace Award. He also received the George Foster Peabody Award for his report on the collapse of the financial market in 1987 and the Luminary Award of the Business Journalism Review (1990 ), the Horatio Alger Association Award for Distinguished Americans ( 1999) and the National Space Club Media Award (2000 ).

He was elected to the Father of the Year 1993.

Writings

• Exporting America. Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas, 2004.
• Space. The Next Business Frontier, 2005.
• War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back, 2006.
• Independents Day. Awakening The American Spirit, 2007.