He has also voiced strong opinions on ways that the African American community can improve their lives, which has caused some controversy.

He has been outspoken in his work at CNN, criticizing the state of cable news and questioning the network publicly. He won three Emmys for local reporting while at WMAQ. In 2003, he began working at NBC owned-and-operated station WMAQ-TV in Chicago, and was a reporter and local news co-anchor. Lemon reported for NBC News's New York City operations, including working as a correspondent for both Today, and NBC Nightly News and as an anchor on Weekend Today and programs on MSNBC. Louis, Missouri, and Fox's Chicago affiliate. For several years he was an anchor and investigative reporter for Fox affiliate KTVI in St. Career Regional reporterĮarly in his career, Lemon reported as a weekend news anchor for WBRC in Birmingham, Alabama, and for WCAU in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Louis and Chicago for several years, and was a correspondent for NBC affiliates in Philadelphia and Chicago. While at Brooklyn College, he interned at WNYW. He later graduated from Brooklyn College with a major in broadcast journalism in 1996 at the age of 30. Lemon attended Louisiana State University where he was a Republican and voted for Ronald Reagan. Lemon was voted class president during his senior year. He attended Baker High School, a public high school in the town of Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish. He is of mostly African-American ancestry, along with Creole his maternal grandmother was the daughter of a black mother and a white father, who had French and Scots-Irish ancestry. Lemon was born under the surname of his mother's then-husband, and discovered that Richardson was his father when he was five. His father was a prominent attorney, who was part of a lawsuit successfully challenging segregation of public transportation in Baton Rouge. Lemon was born March 1, 1966, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the son of Katherine Marie (Bouligney) and Wilmon Lee Richardson. After several on-air controversies and reports of alleged decades-long instances of sexism and misogyny he was fired from CNN in April 2023. He most recently served as a co-host of CNN This Morning, alongside Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow. He joined CNN in 2006, also as a correspondent and later achieved prominence as the presenter of Don Lemon Tonight from 2014 to 2022. He also received three regional Emmy Awards for his special report on real estate in Chicago and a business feature on craigslist. Murrow Award in 2002 for his coverage of the capture of the Washington, D.C. Lemon is also a recipient of an Edward R. Lemon worked as a news correspondent for NBC on its programming, such as Today and NBC Nightly News. He anchored weekend news programs on local television stations in Alabama and Pennsylvania during his early days as a journalist. Don Lemon (born March 1, 1966) is an American television journalist best known for being a host on CNN from 2014 until 2023.

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