The Secret Life of Lou Dobbs

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.american.com/archive/2006/november/lou-dobbs

From the Magazine: Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Why did the influential CNN business anchor undergo an abrupt metamorphosis from corporate sycophant to fire-breathing populist? LUKE MULLINS found the surprising answer in Rupert, the hardscrabble Idaho town where Dobbs grew up.

<snip>But Lou Dobbs wasn’t always like this. For the first two decades of his career, he was a respected business journalist known for dispassionate reporting and deferential, almost sycophantic, treatment of American CEOs. In his new book, Dobbs calls himself a “lifelong Republican and a strong believer in free enterprise,” and in the early part of his career, those positions were apparent. His former perspective on corporate America has been preserved in CNN’s archives, in a segment that aired July 4, 2001, titled “Hail to the Chiefs.” snip

Through his first two decades with the network, Dobbs not only won praise for his generally straight business coverage, but he also relished his cuddly relationships with high-profile figures on Wall Street. “He liked to boast about flying around with Henry Kravis, Robert Mosbacher, and other top financiers,” Kurtz wrote.

In 1992, The Wall Street Journal reported that Dobbs had made promotional videos for Shearson Lehman Brothers, Paine Webber, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.

“With his usual stubbornness, Dobbs said it was ‘nonsensical to talk about this as a conflict of interest’ and that he made far more money giving speeches to corporate groups, a practice that also raised ethical questions,” Kurtz wrote. Dobbs was later reprimanded by CNN. An Idaho newspaper said he reportedly agreed to return the $15,000 fee earned for the videos and apologized for poor judgment.

But the ethical snags didn’t stop there. In addition to his show, Dobbs dispensed stock-market wisdom in a monthly publication called the Lou Dobbs Money Letter, which cost $199 for an annual subscription. But in early 2004, journalists reported that Dobbs was telling his Money Letter customers to buy stocks in many of the same companies that appeared on his list of corporations that were outsourcing jobs. Companies such as Boeing and Washington Mutual were at once heralded as good investments (Dobbs also called Boeing “a deeply idealistic company”) in the newsletter and vilified as un-American on the website for Dobbs’s TV show. The Lou Dobbs Money Letter is no longer in existence.

A CNN management change would lead to the end of the first Dobbs era. He abruptly left the network in 1999, after the new president, Rick Kaplan, with whom Dobbs had a stormy relationship, cut into a “Moneyline” segment to go live to an address by President Clinton that Dobbs did not deem newsworthy. After he resigned from CNN, Dobbs, with strategic partners NBC and Gannett Co., launched Space.com, a Web-based multimedia company that focused on space and astronomy. Dobbs became CEO in June 1999, less than a year before the high-tech bubble popped.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

1. That was a long read! Good too.

my favorite line~
“It’s as if whatever made Linda Blair’s head spin around in ‘The Exorcist’ had invaded the body of Lou Dobbs and left him with the brain of Dennis Kucinich,” Daniel Henninger wrote in a March 2004 column on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal.
LOL. Thanks.

[Mojorabbit]

2. Interesting article

Thanks!

[Vinca]

3. I think Lou has just figured how to wring the most money out of a schtick. nt

[Berry Cool]

4. Sounds like if you threw a party and invited everyone who ever butted heads with Rick Kaplan

at his various TV jobs, you'd have a whole roomful of very strong personalities, most of whom probably wouldn't be able to stand each other, but would all be united in one thing: the fact that they couldn't get along with Rick Kaplan.

[UTUSN]

5. Good article - but I'm still missing the part explaining his switch-over

Plus, there was no mention of his (Mexican? Mexican-American?) wife, one who bills herself "Debi Lee Segura DE DOBBS"!1 Can there BE a more bizarre appellation than "Debi Lee Segura (PROPERTY OF) Dobbs"?!1 What an interesting angle to leave out of a profile of a dude whose calling card (today) is anti-Hispanic, that his wife is Hispanic. Is she in agreement? Is she one of those "assimilated" Hispanics who have lost touch with their way-past culture, but then why the totally subservient formulation of her name, "DE DOBBS" ----- "(PROPERTY OF) DOBBS"?! That styling is the absolutely traditional, enculturated Spanish rule: The maiden name, then "DE" ("belonging to"), then the married surname. The message she's sending ain't coming through!1

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http://www.american.com/archive/2006/november/lou-dobbs

.... Current and former CNN employees describe Dobbs as a volatile, sometimes ruthless figure. “He rules by fear,” a current CNN employee, who would not be named, said. “He’s definitely a screamer,” said another. “He can be stubborn, vicious, cutting, and his words are very forceful.”

Some employees got it worse than others. “Dobbs had once demanded that a very short producer stand on a chair so he could yell at him, and when the young man refused, Dobbs crouched down to deliver the scolding,” wrote Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post in The Fortune Tellers, his 2001 book about business media. Dobbs’s former employees say that his actions were designed to build loyalty. “He was not indiscriminately mean-spirited, but it was more of a test,” said a former “Moneyline” employee. “Those that failed the test left, and those that passed the test stuck around.” ....

Regardless of the logic behind the change, the increased ratings have come at a price. CNN employees say that Dobbs has become increasingly controversial inside the network. His power is resented, and his extreme positions are mocked. His face on network monitors inevitably provokes jokes and eye-rolling from CNN staffers. “We all start banging our heads against the wall,” one of them says.

What’s most disconcerting for CNN employees is not Dobbs’s populist stance, but rather the type of journalism that he represents. “At CNN, either you’re a journalist or you’re a commentator, and he’s a hybrid,” says a current CNN employee. “And I’m sure it’ll be discussed in journalism classes for years to come: Can you play that dual role?” ....



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Dobbs

.... Dobbs is pro-choice, anti-gun control, and supports government regulations, as revealed in a 60 Minutes interview.

Dobbs' stance on trade has earned plaudits from some trade union activists on the traditional political left, while his stance on immigration tends to appeal to the right.<1> In an interview with Larry King, Dobbs revealed that he is now "an unaffiliated independent" due to dissatisfaction with both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Dobbs has been generally supportive of gay civil rights. In June 2006, as the U.S. Senate debated the Federal Marriage Amendment, Dobbs was critical of the action. He asserted that traditional marriage was threatened more by financial crises perpetuated by Bush administration economic policy than by gay marriage.<26>

In July 2006, Dobbs criticized U.S. foreign policy as being disproportionately supportive of Israel, pointing out the U.S.'s rapid recognition of Israel in 1948, foreign aid to Israel, and other policy choices in the past and present.<27> ....

.... He is married to his second wife, Debi Lee Segura de Dobbs, a one-time CNN sports anchor. ....

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