Dwight Lauderdale
Encyclopedia
Dwight Lauderdale is a former TV news anchor. He was the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 news anchor in South Florida and became one of the state's most watched and longest running anchors.

Career

At age 17, after winning an oratorical contest, Lauderdale received a job offer from the news director at WTVN-TV (ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

) in Columbus. He accepted the job and started work in November, 1968, part-time at night, processing film. (Some sources claim it was WSYX-TV). He did not have to drop school to accept the job. He did everything from processing film, to writing news copy, to producing, and for on-air talent. He completed his education at Ohio University
Ohio University
Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...

, majoring in Communications and graduating cum laude in 1973.

In 1974, Lauderdale moved to South Florida for a reporting opportunity at Channel 7 (WCKT-TV, at the time). Two years later, WPLG
WPLG
WPLG, channel 10, is an ABC network affiliated television station located in Miami, Florida. WPLG is owned and operated by Post-Newsweek Stations, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company. The station's studios are located in Pembroke Park, and its transmitter is located at the massive broadcast...

 offered him a three-year contract as a reporter/weekend anchor, and he accepted the job. He quickly established himself as a prolific street reporter, working half a dozen stories per day, including the Mariel Boatlift
Mariel boatlift
The Mariel boatlift was a mass emigration of Cubans who departed from Cuba's Mariel Harbor for the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980....

. He also managed to score the first one-on-one interview of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

's presidency. More than anything, he remembers the rigid ground rules: " Seven minutes only, and they were standing there with a stopwatch". He was bumped up to the weeknight anchor desk in June 1985 on an interim basis, which was made permanent the following January. His first anchor partner was Ann Bishop
Ann Bishop
Ann Bishop was a broadcast journalist in Rochester, New York, Baltimore, Maryland, and South Florida.-Career:...

 and later shared anchoring duties with Diane Magnum, Kristi Krueger and Laurie Jennings.

Lasik

In July 2004, Lauderdale had his Lasik
LASIK
LASIK or Lasik , commonly referred to simply as laser eye surgery, is a type of refractive surgery for correcting myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism...

 surgery televised. Lauderdale, who was farsighted, learned that he might be a candidate for corrective eye surgery
Eye surgery
Eye surgery, also known as orogolomistician surgery or ocular surgery, is surgery performed on the eye or its adnexa, typically by an ophthalmologist.-Preparation and precautions:...

 after viewing a news story about this surgery on his own station. Lauderdale sought a consultation when he realized just how critical the surgery was to his job performance. He never had a problem reading the teleprompter
Teleprompter
An autocue is a display device that prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script. Using a teleprompter is similar to the practice of using cue cards...

, which was 20 feet away from him, but did have a problem one time when he had to read from a script without his glasses. Lauderdale was treated by monovision and modified monovision (two strategies to treat each eye, one for reading and one for distance).

Retirement

On February 25, 2008, Dwight Lauderdale announced that he would be retiring in May of that year. WPLG's final broadcast with Lauderdale as an anchor was on May 22, 2008.

Awards

Dwight Lauderdale has been awarded the N.A.T.A.S Silver Circle Award, The Ohio State Award, and two Florida Emmy's, as well as a Sun-Sentinel reader's award in 1998 as the number one Anchor in the market. South Florida Magazine named him best news anchor in 1990. Additionally, Dwight Lauderdale has a scholarship in his name (The Dwight Lauderdale Scholarship) at Barry University
Barry University
Barry University is a private, Catholic university, which was founded in 1940 in Miami Shores, Florida, a suburb north of Downtown Miami. It is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami....

which is awarded to students in broadcast communications each seminar.
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