Hoda Kotb is the co-host of the fourth hour of NBC’s “Today.” She began hosting the 10 a.m. hour when it debuted in September 2007, and she currently hosts alongside Kathie Lee Gifford. Kotb has also been a “Dateline NBC” correspondent since April 1998, and she is a New York Times Bestselling author for her book Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer and Kathie Lee.
Since Gifford and Kotb teamed up, the fourth hour of “Today” has been hailed as “appointment television” by Entertainment Weekly, and “TODAY’s happy hour” by USA Today. In 2010, the TODAY show received the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Morning Progam.
Kotb has covered a wide variety of domestic and international stories across all NBC News platforms as well as numerous human-interest stories and features. She covered in-depth, the aftermath and one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a story personal to Kotb who lived in New Orleans for six years. She has reported on the war in Iraq, the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and the War on Terror in Afghanistan. Kotb conducted an exclusive interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, an internationally recognized leader of Burma, marking the first time in 11 years that Suu Kyi was interviewed by an American television network. From 2004 to 2008, she served as the host of the weekly syndicated series “Your Total Health.”
Kotb traveled to Southeast Asia to cover the devastating effects of the 2004 Tsunami, and she traveled to war-torn Burma, led secretly by rebel soldiers, to report the complete story on 12-year-old twin warriors who were said to have magical powers. Kotb also co-anchored an MSNBC special on race, “Shades of Hope…Shadows of Hate,” which was reported from Birmingham, Ala. at the former site of a Klan bombing.
Kotb is a three-year breast cancer survivor and has been a part of several initiatives to raise awareness about the disease. Diagnosed in March 2007, she shared her story on “Today” in October 2007. .
Kotb has received numerous awards including the 2008 Gracie Award for Individual Achievement, the 2008 Alfred I. duPont –Columbia University award and the prestigious Peabody in 2006 for her “Dateline NBC” report “The Education of Ms. Groves.” The four-time Emmy nominee also won the 2004 Headliner Award, the 2003 Gracie Award and the 2002 Edward R. Murrow Award.
Prior to joining NBC News, Kotb worked at WWL-TV, the CBS affiliate in New Orleans, La. where she served as an anchor and reporter for the 10 p.m. news broadcast (1992-98). She was a weekend anchor and reporter for WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Fla. (1989-91). Prior to that, Kotb was a morning anchor and general assignment reporter for WQAD-TV, the ABC affiliate in Moline, Ill., and an anchor for WXVT-TV, the CBS affiliate in Greenville, Miss., (1986-89). Kotb began her broadcast career with CBS News as a news assistant in Cairo, Egypt (1986).
Kotb graduated from Virginia Tech University with a Bachelor of Arts in broadcast journalism. She resides in New York City.
July 2012
