page_title: Richard Lui
section_title: Journalism career
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Lui / Journalism career
caption_attribution_description: English: Journalist Richard Lui interviews a guest for MSNBC.
context_page_description: Richard Lui is an American journalist and news anchor for MSNBC and NBC News. Lui anchors Early Today on NBC and is a dayside anchor for MSNBC broadcasting from 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. He was formerly at CNN Worldwide. At CNN Worldwide he became the first Asian American male to anchor a daily, national cable news show when he solo anchored the 10 a.m. hour on CNN Headline News. Mediaite ranked Lui among the top 100 in news buzz on its "Power Grid Influence Index of TV Anchors and Hosts" and one of "The 50 Sexiest in TV News".
  Lui is also a columnist, contributing to publications including USA Today, Politico, The Seattle Times, Detroit Free Press, and San Francisco Chronicle. His public speaking spans six continents and some 200 events in the last several years. Twitter Counter places his following in the top 1%.
  Lui's enterprise reporting has focused on humanitarian issues including gender equality, human trafficking, and affordable housing. His charity work in the same spaces has led him to work with Plan International USA as a global ambassador for its Because I am a Girl campaign.
context_section_description: In the 1990s, Lui was exposed to a pivotal time in California politics. As a reporter at KALX, he was assigned to Dianne Feinstein's first successful U.S. Senate campaign and the Rodney King verdict and riots.
  Later, in the 2000s, Lui moved to Asia to capture a heated moment in regional politics. He was at Channel NewsAsia, an English language network reaching 24 territories. Two Muslim countries in Southeast Asia were undertaking key transformations. Indonesia’s Sukarno family was defeated after rule spanning over half a century. And Malaysia's prime minister, after almost a quarter of a century, handed over power. Lui also covered the South Asian tsunami, and the 2003 SARS and bird flu outbreaks.
  During five years at CNN Worldwide, Lui anchored and reported on all CNN English-language networks, including CNN US, CNN International, and HLN. He anchored live breaking stories such as the 2009 Gaza-Israel War, Virginia Tech Massacre, 2006 Hezbollah-Israel War, Mumbai train terrorist bombings, and Mumbai Hotels Siege.
  In 2006, Lui's undercover reporting exposed child sex slavery in Indonesia. Later, in a CNN Freedom Project report, he investigated seven-year-olds sold to Ghanaian fishermen as labor slaves. His field reporting explored political and civil rights controversies in the Asian-American community, including the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which led to a system of illegal immigrants called paper sons. He reported on the racially motivated killing of Vincent Chin and its association to the Muslim-American community’s post 9/11 challenges. In addition, he reported extensively from the Gulf on the BP oil spill. He received Peabody and Emmy awards for his team reporting at CNN during Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Oil Spill.
  Lui joined MSNBC in 2010. Today, Lui anchors Early Today for NBC News. At MSNBC, his beat is politics. He is based at NBC's offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. In addition, Lui covers sports for both NBC News and MSNBC morning shows. He also served as news anchor for The Weather Channel’s program with Al Roker, Wake Up With Al.
  Some of the events he's anchored breaking coverage of include the Scotland independence vote, 2013 government shutdown, Boston Marathon bombing, Japanese earthquake and tsunami, NATO's attack in Libya, and the Arab Spring and Egypt’s revolution. Lui's field reporting has included covering the Ferguson unrest, Hurricane Sandy, and the 2012 U.S. Presidential election. For the election, his reports have ranged from the implications of the Tea Party movement to presidential election night exit poll data. In an NBC News investigation, Lui reported on a phenomenon involving high-volume brothels in the U.S. where women are forced to have sex 100 times a day.
  Lui is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association and was elected 2013 Member of the Year.
caption: Richard Lui interviews a guest for MSNBC.
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