photo by: Courtesy: Patrick Randak/NBC)

Lester Hold

The anchor of NBC’s nightly news and the network’s popular Dateline news program will receive the University of Kansas’ top journalism award this spring.

Lester Holt, the anchor and managing editor for “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt,” and the anchor for “Dateline NBC” has been chosen as the winner of the William Allen White National Citation, KU announced on Monday.

Holt will be in Lawrence in April to accept the award at a public event. Holt will deliver a keynote address at 3 p.m. on April 10 in the Kansas Union Ballroom as part of an event that is free and open to the public.

Holt has been the anchor of NBC’s nightly news since 2015, and has anchored the investigative news program Dateline since 2011. Holt was on scene for many of the biggest news stories of the past year, including live reporting from both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, in Florida during Hurricane Milton, and at the Paris Olympics for three weeks. Additionally, he conducted interviews with President Joe Biden, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, and with multiple families of American hostages in Gaza, among others.

“The selection of Lester Holt as the recipient of this award continues a long tradition of the William Allen White Foundation board of trustees honoring distinguished journalists,” said Ann Brill, dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications. “Mr. Holt has spent decades telling some of the most important stories in the world.”

Holt is a multiple Emmy Award winner and has received the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award. Holt will join a long list of top print and broadcast journalists who have received the William Allen White Award at KU. Other past winners include news anchors Walter Cronkite, Charles Kuralt, Bernard Shaw, Cokie Roberts, print journalists Bob Woodward, Leonard Pitts Jr., Gerald Seib, Frank Deford, Molly Ivins, and media executives Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Sally Buzbee, and Martin Baron, among others.

The award, which is managed by the William Allen White Foundation, has been presented since 1950. It is named after the late Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the Emporia Gazette.