Lou Dobbs, Former CNN and Fox Business Anchor, Dies at 78

Lou Dobbs, one of CNN’s original anchors who later worked at the Fox Business channel, has died. He was 78.

“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Lou Dobbs. An incredible business mind with a gift for broadcasting, Lou helped pioneer cable news into a successful and influential industry. We are immensely grateful for his many contributions and send our heartfelt condolences to his family,” a spokesperson for Fox News told The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday.

No cause of death was specified for the former anchor and managing editor of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, who became known in recent years as a conservative TV and radio commentator and whose hard-line populist views made him a Fox star. After CNN, Dobbs made his way to the Fox Business Network, where he anchored Lou Dobbs Tonight until that show’s cancellation in February 2021.

He had joined the Fox Business channel ten years earlier and had been a staple conservative voice on that network. Dobbs also anchored the nationally syndicated radio program The Lou Dobbs Show, and a financial news radio report, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report.

Born in Texas on Sept. 24, 1945, Dobbs eventually graduated with an economics degree from Harvard University. In 1980, Dobbs joined CNN as chief economics correspondent and anchor of the Moneyline program. He left CNN in 2009 after his commentary around immigration drew criticism from the network’s management.

Two years later, he joined the Fox Business Network. But his exit from that TV channel in 2021 followed his on-air commentary around the 2020 U.S. presidential election and Dobbs being named as part of a lawsuit by Smartmatic against Fox Corp., which named him personally.

That legal action eventually saw Fox settle out of court by paying $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems. As an author, Dobbs wrote a series of books, including Exporting America, War on the Middle Class and Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit.

In 2005, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Dobbs an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement. A year earlier, the National Television Academy awarded Lou Dobbs Tonight an Emmy, and Dobbs received the George Foster Peabody Award for his coverage of the 1987 stock market crash.