(NewsReady.com) – Conservative media personality Lou Dobbs has died. Dobbs was one of the pioneers of cable TV news and later became a popular commentator on Fox News. He was also one of former President Donald Trump’s strongest backers in the media.
Louis Carl Dobbs was born in Childress, Texas, on September 24, 1945. When he was 12, his father’s business failed, and the family moved to Idaho, where Dobbs graduated high school before being accepted by Harvard and gaining a degree in economics. He then went on to work on federal anti-poverty programs in Washington, DC, and Boston, before returning to Idaho and beginning a law degree at the University of Idaho. However, he soon dropped out and moved to California, where he found a job with a bank. Three years later, in 1970, he moved again, this time to Yuma, Arizona, and he also changed careers, becoming a police and fire reporter for local radio station KBLU.
Dobbs quickly adapted to his new job, and moved from radio to TV. His big break came in 1979, when Ted Turner was in the process of forming CNN and was looking for experienced anchors. One of his recruiters contacted Dobbs, who accepted the offer and joined the network at its 1980 launch. He started as its lead economics correspondent, but moved up to become an executive. However, in 1997, he clashed with the company’s new president, ultra-liberal Rick Kaplan, who was pushing CNN’s news coverage to the left. He returned when Kaplan left in 2000, but left again in 2009.
In 2010, Dobbs moved to Fox, where he soon made a name for his strongly conservative personality. He was one of the first media figures to raise the controversy over President Barack Obama’s place of birth, and an early backer of Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
Dobbs married twice, in 1967 to his high school girlfriend and then in 1981 to former CNN anchor Debi Lee Segura. He had five children. He died on July 18.
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