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News&#39; Lester Holt on Covering Hurricane Harvey and the Importance of Being on the Ground","isPreview":false,"meta":{"title":"Article","contentType":"article"},"pageName":"article","params":{},"query":{},"publishTimestamp":"2017-08-30T18:21:06.209Z","sitemap":{"nodes":[{"label":"Home","url":"/"},{"label":"Channel","url":"/channel","nodes":[{"label":"Subchannel","url":"/channel/subchannel"}]}]},"subChannel":"","tags":[],"contentId":"59a6db501d9c5d3cd0db590b","contentSource":"web"}},"ArticleStore":{"body":[{"content":"<p>NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt has been in Texas covering <a href=\"https://www.gq.com/story/fox-news-trump-post-vacancies\">Hurricane Harvey</a> since the time it came ashore, battering the coast as a Category 4 before wobbling inland with a torrential downpour that flooded the city of Houston. By Tuesday night, Harvey was rendered a tropical storm retreating to the sea, plodding eastward to Louisiana. But the wrath it left behind has sunken homes, filled dams dangerously to their brims, separated families, and <a href=\"https://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-harvey-texas-visit\">displaced tens of thousands of people</a>, many of whom didn&#x2019;t know it would be so bad. The ultimate number of casualties and injuries remains unknown.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>As floodwaters continued to rise for the sixth day in a row, inundating a third of Harris County, Lester Holt remained in the field with his crew, surveying the damage and rescue efforts; finding evacuees, rescued residents, and community members, and telling their wild stories.\nChasing leads by day and filming the <em>Nightly News</em> on location in the evening, he&#x2019;s been a busy man.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>While some of his peers have staked out a lane by embracing polarization in this era, Holt (the only lead network anchor to have gone to Texas) is instead almost stubbornly uncontroversial. Quietly angling to carve out, or really, conserve a space for the Cronkite-esque anchor, who can hold forth the day&#x2019;s events and crises with the respect, if not the agreement, of every American. That might sound overly earnest, but it&#x2019;s essentially the newsman version of the Obama-formula. And it&#x2019;s been working pretty well for Holt and NBC. A man of color reminiscent of the former president in everything from skin tone to timbre of voice, to see Holt on camera in the field&#x2014;looking just as comfortable with white, black, and Hispanic Texans as they are with him&#x2014;is to faintly jog the memory of the days, not so long ago, when optimism and coalition-building were, perhaps foolishly, more than civic buzzwords.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>On the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and the eve of Harvey&#x2019;s second landfall, Holt spoke with <em>GQ</em> about the unfolding situation in south Texas, his career-long commitment to shoe-leather reporting, and how he sees the heroic problem-solving and neighborliness on display in Texas, and on social media, as a sign that overcoming our current toxic body politic might be possible.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<figure class=\"embedded-image\" data-type=\"image\"><div class=\"embedded-image-content\"><div class=\"component-responsive-image\" data-component=\"ResponsiveImage\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image-picture\"><source media=\"(min-width: 1280px)\" srcset=\"https://media.gq.com/photos/59a6e17a2757e21a726360a9/master/w_800/lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\"><source media=\"(min-width: 1024px)\" srcset=\"https://media.gq.com/photos/59a6e17a2757e21a726360a9/master/w_560/lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\"><source media=\"(min-width: 768px)\" srcset=\"https://media.gq.com/photos/59a6e17a2757e21a726360a9/master/w_640/lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\"><source media=\"(min-width: 640px)\" srcset=\"https://media.gq.com/photos/59a6e17a2757e21a726360a9/master/w_480/lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\"><source media=\"(min-width: 0px)\" srcset=\"https://media.gq.com/photos/59a6e17a2757e21a726360a9/master/w_640/lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"component-responsive-image-img\" src=\"https://media.gq.com/photos/59a6e17a2757e21a726360a9/master/w_800/lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\"></picture></div><div class=\"component-social-share social-share-embedded-image closed\" data-component=\"SocialShare\"><div class=\"share-item facebook\" data-href=\"https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gq.com%2Fstory%2Fnbc-lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-interview&amp;t=lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\" data-component=\"facebook\"><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gq.com%2Fstory%2Fnbc-lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-interview&amp;t=lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\" data-pin-do=\"\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Facebook\"><span class=\"icon\"></span><span class=\"label\">Facebook</span></a></div><div class=\"share-item pinterest\" data-href=\"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gq.com%2Fstory%2Fnbc-lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-interview&amp;media=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.gq.com%2Fphotos%2F59a6e17a2757e21a726360a9%2F1%3A1%2Fw_680%2Cc_limit%2Flester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg&amp;description=lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\" data-component=\"pinterest\"><a href=\"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gq.com%2Fstory%2Fnbc-lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-interview&amp;media=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.gq.com%2Fphotos%2F59a6e17a2757e21a726360a9%2F1%3A1%2Fw_680%2Cc_limit%2Flester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg&amp;description=lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-1.jpg\" data-pin-do=\"none\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Pinterest\"><span class=\"icon\"></span><span class=\"label\">Pinterest</span></a></div></div></div><figcaption class=\"component-caption embedded-image-caption\"><span class=\"credit\">NBC</span></figcaption></figure>","isEmbed":false,"type":"image"},{"content":"<p><strong>GQ: You&apos;ve hosted a presidential debate, held a one-on-one sit down with President Trump where <a href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-reportedly-being-investigated-possible-obstruction-justice-n772631\">he essentially admitted to obstructing justice</a>, and you anchor NBC&apos;s Flagship broadcast. Nobody, it seems, would have given you flak for orchestrating Harvey coverage from network headquarters. What is it about this sort of scrappier, on the ground reporting that still draws you?</strong></p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p><em>Lester Holt</em>: Well, it&apos;s in my DNA. I know that can sound trite, but yeah I started out as a street reporter, I did radio with a car with big antennae on it, police scanner in hand, chasing stories, and that&apos;s what I love doing. And I&apos;m blessed to have this wonderful job as the anchor of <em>Nightly News</em> and it comes with a lot of prestige, but I always believe that in our hearts, all of us are reporters. You never lose that, so there&apos;s always that desire that when the bell rings, you want to go, and that&apos;s how I moved forward.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p><strong>You were there when the Army Corps of Engineers&#x2014;an organization that&apos;s still recovering from its Katrina-stained reputation&#x2014;unilaterally elected to conduct a &quot;controlled release&quot; of surrounding reservoirs and, as you reported, they maintain Houston will have to flood some neighborhoods in order to save it as a whole. How are affected Houstonians that you&apos;ve been talking to reacting to that decision? And do you think down the road that there will be some political blow back?</strong></p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>Well, interesting that you ask that question, because I was just in the area of that reservoir&#x2014;we just passed it a few minutes ago here on the highway&#x2014;and saw for ourselves several neighborhoods that have been adversely affected by it. I&apos;m sure there will be some second guessing about the decision, right now we&apos;re just covering it as the impact. The official word is that the dams wouldn&apos;t hold under the pressure -- they made that decision. I think there will be a time for those stories that look a little deeper into it, but right now the focus of what we&apos;re doing is just talking to those impacted.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>I spoke with a couple of families yesterday who were being evacuated from one of those affected neighborhoods, and they were a little taken off guard because they didn&apos;t have any news of it because they had no power in their neighborhood. So, as the water started filling up at a rapid pace, they expressed, well, surprise. No one was openly critical, and to be fair, at that moment they&apos;d just come out of a harrowing situation. They really weren&apos;t in a frame of mind to have deep conversations about it. They were just happy to be out and safe.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p><strong>Can you break down the logistics of reporting in the midst of a catastrophe like this? With flash floods here, and collapsed bridges there, and thunderstorms very literally surrounding you. How do you and your team determine where to broadcast or which route to take when following a story without ending up stranded or needing help yourselves?</strong></p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>Well, that&apos;s a good question, we have got a ton of experience between all of us. We&apos;ve all done natural disasters, not only hurricanes, but tornadoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes and things&#x2014;so we tend to know how the rhythm of things work. You have discussions, very often, like, &quot;Okay what do we want to do, do we want to go down this road, what&apos;s the alternative,&quot; and we talk it out as a team. We also have practical considerations about when we&apos;re going live. We need to be able to have a place where we can set up our equipment where it&#x2019;ll remain safe, that won&apos;t get flooded out.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>On these stories, we have at least one big satellite truck. Before a hurricane, with our technicians, we&#x2019;ll decide on the best place to take it because with this big dish on it, if it catches the wind the wrong way... that could become a problem. So, it&apos;s all a real collaborative effort. We put our years of experience together, and look after each other.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p><strong>This flooding is so visibly awful and widespread and, in many areas, unexpected. While, of course, we&apos;re all cheering for survivors the current toll of lives lost has thankfully been low. [<em>Ed. note:</em> At the time of publication, the death toll was at twenty.] From your sense of it on the ground, is there hope that it could remain that low?</strong></p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>You know I&apos;ve heard... I believe it was the police chief, but I know that there has been some law enforcement official, who raised the question of what might they find in some of these neighborhoods and homes in the days to come, and hopefully they don&apos;t find further victims. I will tell you that one of the angles that we covered on tonight&apos;s nightly news, was that people have new and different ways to get help now because of social media. I interviewed one of the law enforcement officials and he showed me some of the text messages and some of the social media messages. One specific example: there was a hashtag, #SOSHarvey, in which people were saying I need help here&apos;s where I am. And that led to many of the rescues, so you&#x2019;re kind of seeing this new age of social media really come to play, and when all&apos;s said and done we might look back and realize that saved a lot of lives.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p><strong>You&#x2019;re somebody that&apos;s been reporting and anchoring for a long time, and surely part of that job is having your finger on the pulse of the nation, its mood. Though each storm comes with its unique challenges&#x2014;social, physical, or otherwise&#x2014;on the anniversary of Katrina today, how would you compare the mood right now as to the mood, the social atmosphere, then in 2005?</strong></p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>I think that when something of a magnitude of a Katrina or a Harvey happens, that we see our true selves&#x2014;we revert to who we are. And we are a good people who know when it&apos;s time to check all our differences at the door and come together&#x2014;and I&apos;ve seen it time and time again at natural disasters that people focus on one another because in one way or another they&apos;re all saying to themselves we&#x2019;re together in this. I have nothing but admiration for the people here. Their self-reliance was apparent. But, I don&apos;t think I can really describe the mood at that particular point in our history, 2005 versus now, but I think that you see the same thing every disaster, that we show our true selves- the good, generous, caring, people that we are.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p><strong>Soon enough, you&apos;ll be back in Manhattan at NBC Studios. And the kind of transcendence of the human spirit that we see in the midst of these things, as always, surely will be bogged down by some of the thornier, sobering debates about blame, the politics of passing funding for relief, the nitty gritty of who ends up qualifying for insurance, etcetera. How do you think your time in Houston, and in South Texas more generally, will affect the way that you frame and approach these issues going forward?</strong></p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>Yeah, I think everybody understands that there are lessons to be learned from every horrible tragedy. It is a natural disaster, what we once would call an act of God. How we respond to it is certainly up to us and we look to leaders to do the best job they can. But, not to be too trite, time will tell. I&apos;m sure there will be those debates and we&apos;ll be covering those and just as we cover this.</p>","isEmbed":false,"type":"p"},{"content":"<p>People refer to lessons of Katrina. Things like <em>&apos;don&apos;t go to your attic&apos;</em>, for example, that was a lesson of Katrina. We make references to those, and I think what you&apos;ll see is when there will be another disaster of this scale we may refer back to the lessons of Harvey, and some of the experiences that they have here. This is a story that we will continue to cover. The intensity of the coverage won&apos;t be what it is now, but it is one that we&apos;ll come back 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data-reactid="137"><a href="mailto:?subject=&amp;body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gq.com%2Fstory%2Fnbc-lester-holt-hurricane-harvey-interview" data-pin-do="" aria-label="Email" data-reactid="138"><span class="icon" data-reactid="139"></span><span class="label" data-reactid="140">Email</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="col  article-content" data-component="Col" data-reactid="141"><p class="dek" data-reactid="142">A conversation with the legendary anchor.</p><div class="embed p" data-reactid="143"><p>NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt has been in Texas covering <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/fox-news-trump-post-vacancies">Hurricane Harvey</a> since the time it came ashore, battering the coast as a Category 4 before wobbling inland with a torrential downpour that flooded the city of Houston. By Tuesday night, Harvey was rendered a tropical storm retreating to the sea, plodding eastward to Louisiana. But the wrath it left behind has sunken homes, filled dams dangerously to their brims, separated families, and <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-harvey-texas-visit">displaced tens of thousands of people</a>, many of whom didn&#x2019;t know it would be so bad. The ultimate number of casualties and injuries remains unknown.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="144"><p>As floodwaters continued to rise for the sixth day in a row, inundating a third of Harris County, Lester Holt remained in the field with his crew, surveying the damage and rescue efforts; finding evacuees, rescued residents, and community members, and telling their wild stories.
Chasing leads by day and filming the <em>Nightly News</em> on location in the evening, he&#x2019;s been a busy man.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="145"><p>While some of his peers have staked out a lane by embracing polarization in this era, Holt (the only lead network anchor to have gone to Texas) is instead almost stubbornly uncontroversial. Quietly angling to carve out, or really, conserve a space for the Cronkite-esque anchor, who can hold forth the day&#x2019;s events and crises with the respect, if not the agreement, of every American. That might sound overly earnest, but it&#x2019;s essentially the newsman version of the Obama-formula. And it&#x2019;s been working pretty well for Holt and NBC. A man of color reminiscent of the former president in everything from skin tone to timbre of voice, to see Holt on camera in the field&#x2014;looking just as comfortable with white, black, and Hispanic Texans as they are with him&#x2014;is to faintly jog the memory of the days, not so long ago, when optimism and coalition-building were, perhaps foolishly, more than civic buzzwords.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="146"><p>On the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and the eve of Harvey&#x2019;s second landfall, Holt spoke with <em>GQ</em> about the unfolding situation in south Texas, his career-long commitment to shoe-leather reporting, and how he sees the heroic problem-solving and neighborliness on display in Texas, and on social media, as a sign that overcoming our current toxic body politic might be possible.</p></div><div class="component-lazy pending" data-component="Lazy" data-reactid="147"></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="148"><p><strong>GQ: You&apos;ve hosted a presidential debate, held a one-on-one sit down with President Trump where <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-reportedly-being-investigated-possible-obstruction-justice-n772631">he essentially admitted to obstructing justice</a>, and you anchor NBC&apos;s Flagship broadcast. Nobody, it seems, would have given you flak for orchestrating Harvey coverage from network headquarters. What is it about this sort of scrappier, on the ground reporting that still draws you?</strong></p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="149"><p><em>Lester Holt</em>: Well, it&apos;s in my DNA. I know that can sound trite, but yeah I started out as a street reporter, I did radio with a car with big antennae on it, police scanner in hand, chasing stories, and that&apos;s what I love doing. And I&apos;m blessed to have this wonderful job as the anchor of <em>Nightly News</em> and it comes with a lot of prestige, but I always believe that in our hearts, all of us are reporters. You never lose that, so there&apos;s always that desire that when the bell rings, you want to go, and that&apos;s how I moved forward.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="150"><p><strong>You were there when the Army Corps of Engineers&#x2014;an organization that&apos;s still recovering from its Katrina-stained reputation&#x2014;unilaterally elected to conduct a &quot;controlled release&quot; of surrounding reservoirs and, as you reported, they maintain Houston will have to flood some neighborhoods in order to save it as a whole. How are affected Houstonians that you&apos;ve been talking to reacting to that decision? And do you think down the road that there will be some political blow back?</strong></p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="151"><p>Well, interesting that you ask that question, because I was just in the area of that reservoir&#x2014;we just passed it a few minutes ago here on the highway&#x2014;and saw for ourselves several neighborhoods that have been adversely affected by it. I&apos;m sure there will be some second guessing about the decision, right now we&apos;re just covering it as the impact. The official word is that the dams wouldn&apos;t hold under the pressure -- they made that decision. I think there will be a time for those stories that look a little deeper into it, but right now the focus of what we&apos;re doing is just talking to those impacted.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="152"><p>I spoke with a couple of families yesterday who were being evacuated from one of those affected neighborhoods, and they were a little taken off guard because they didn&apos;t have any news of it because they had no power in their neighborhood. So, as the water started filling up at a rapid pace, they expressed, well, surprise. No one was openly critical, and to be fair, at that moment they&apos;d just come out of a harrowing situation. They really weren&apos;t in a frame of mind to have deep conversations about it. They were just happy to be out and safe.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="153"><p><strong>Can you break down the logistics of reporting in the midst of a catastrophe like this? With flash floods here, and collapsed bridges there, and thunderstorms very literally surrounding you. How do you and your team determine where to broadcast or which route to take when following a story without ending up stranded or needing help yourselves?</strong></p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="154"><p>Well, that&apos;s a good question, we have got a ton of experience between all of us. We&apos;ve all done natural disasters, not only hurricanes, but tornadoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes and things&#x2014;so we tend to know how the rhythm of things work. You have discussions, very often, like, &quot;Okay what do we want to do, do we want to go down this road, what&apos;s the alternative,&quot; and we talk it out as a team. We also have practical considerations about when we&apos;re going live. We need to be able to have a place where we can set up our equipment where it&#x2019;ll remain safe, that won&apos;t get flooded out.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="155"><p>On these stories, we have at least one big satellite truck. Before a hurricane, with our technicians, we&#x2019;ll decide on the best place to take it because with this big dish on it, if it catches the wind the wrong way... that could become a problem. So, it&apos;s all a real collaborative effort. We put our years of experience together, and look after each other.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="156"><p><strong>This flooding is so visibly awful and widespread and, in many areas, unexpected. While, of course, we&apos;re all cheering for survivors the current toll of lives lost has thankfully been low. [<em>Ed. note:</em> At the time of publication, the death toll was at twenty.] From your sense of it on the ground, is there hope that it could remain that low?</strong></p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="157"><p>You know I&apos;ve heard... I believe it was the police chief, but I know that there has been some law enforcement official, who raised the question of what might they find in some of these neighborhoods and homes in the days to come, and hopefully they don&apos;t find further victims. I will tell you that one of the angles that we covered on tonight&apos;s nightly news, was that people have new and different ways to get help now because of social media. I interviewed one of the law enforcement officials and he showed me some of the text messages and some of the social media messages. One specific example: there was a hashtag, #SOSHarvey, in which people were saying I need help here&apos;s where I am. And that led to many of the rescues, so you&#x2019;re kind of seeing this new age of social media really come to play, and when all&apos;s said and done we might look back and realize that saved a lot of lives.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="158"><p><strong>You&#x2019;re somebody that&apos;s been reporting and anchoring for a long time, and surely part of that job is having your finger on the pulse of the nation, its mood. Though each storm comes with its unique challenges&#x2014;social, physical, or otherwise&#x2014;on the anniversary of Katrina today, how would you compare the mood right now as to the mood, the social atmosphere, then in 2005?</strong></p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="159"><p>I think that when something of a magnitude of a Katrina or a Harvey happens, that we see our true selves&#x2014;we revert to who we are. And we are a good people who know when it&apos;s time to check all our differences at the door and come together&#x2014;and I&apos;ve seen it time and time again at natural disasters that people focus on one another because in one way or another they&apos;re all saying to themselves we&#x2019;re together in this. I have nothing but admiration for the people here. Their self-reliance was apparent. But, I don&apos;t think I can really describe the mood at that particular point in our history, 2005 versus now, but I think that you see the same thing every disaster, that we show our true selves- the good, generous, caring, people that we are.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="160"><p><strong>Soon enough, you&apos;ll be back in Manhattan at NBC Studios. And the kind of transcendence of the human spirit that we see in the midst of these things, as always, surely will be bogged down by some of the thornier, sobering debates about blame, the politics of passing funding for relief, the nitty gritty of who ends up qualifying for insurance, etcetera. How do you think your time in Houston, and in South Texas more generally, will affect the way that you frame and approach these issues going forward?</strong></p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="161"><p>Yeah, I think everybody understands that there are lessons to be learned from every horrible tragedy. It is a natural disaster, what we once would call an act of God. How we respond to it is certainly up to us and we look to leaders to do the best job they can. But, not to be too trite, time will tell. I&apos;m sure there will be those debates and we&apos;ll be covering those and just as we cover this.</p></div><div class="embed p" data-reactid="162"><p>People refer to lessons of Katrina. Things like <em>&apos;don&apos;t go to your attic&apos;</em>, for example, that was a lesson of Katrina. We make references to those, and I think what you&apos;ll see is when there will be another disaster of this scale we may refer back to the lessons of Harvey, and some of the experiences that they have here. This is a story that we will continue to cover. 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