Matt Lauer has been co-anchor of NBC News’ “Today” since January 6, 1997. He joined “Today” in January 1994 as news anchor. From September 1992 to September 1996, Lauer was at WNBC-TV, the NBC Television Station in New York. There he served as a co-anchor of the early morning newscast “Today in New York” from September 1992 until September 1994, and as a co-anchor of the early evening newscast “News Channel 4/Live at Five” from August 1993 until September 1996. He began substituting on “Today” as a news anchor in early 1993 before becoming the permanent news anchor in 1994.
Since joining NBC News, Lauer has conducted a number of newsworthy interviews. Most recently Lauer conducted an exclusive interview with the sole survivor of the Sago Mine tragedy, Randall McCloy. In the June 2005, Lauer sat down with Tom Cruise for an interview that garnered a tremendous amount of attention for Cruise’s response to Lauer’s questions about scientology and psychiatry. Other exclusive interviews included two individuals involved in the Scott Peterson investigation, Amber Frye and Anne Bird. In January 1998, he sat down for the first interview with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal made headlines. Lauer also conducted a 20-minute interview and tour of the George Bush Library in College Station, Texas, with the former president himself. In April 2000, Lauer marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon with an interview with former P.O.W. and Arizona state senator John McCain, live from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
In August 2005, Lauer co-anchored “Today” from Iraq, hosting the show from Baghdad’s “Camp Liberty” where he interviewed General Richard Myers and U.S. troops. Lauer co-anchored a special split show of “Today” in May of 2004 when “Today” became the first American television network to broadcast live from the border of North and South Korea. In November 2002, Lauer sat down with eleven crew members from Flight 63, the trans-Atlantic flight that Richard Reid, a.k.a. the “shoebomber,” targeted in December 2001. The interview aired in four parts on “Today,” and a full-hour on “Dateline NBC.” When Operation Iraqi Freedom started in March 2003, Lauer contributed live reports from Qatar, the region that served as a staging area for American forces in the preparations for war. Lauer gave “Today” viewers first-person reports from this critical battleground. In August 2004, on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York City, Lauer secured an exclusive interview with President George W. Bush. This newsmaking interview covered topics such as Bush’s strategies for campaigning in key battleground states, the war against terror and the mindset of the Mid East. Lauer also contributed to coverage of live, special events and news stories such as coverage of the past six years of the Olympic Games, the passing of Pope John Paul II in April 2005, and broadcast network coverage of President Ronald Reagan’s funeral in June of 2004.
For what has become one of “Today’s” trademark series for the nearly ten years, Lauer has broadcast live from remote locations around the world for the “Where in the World is Matt Lauer” annual trip. His trips have taken him to over 35 different locations, logging nearly 200,000 miles. In the spring of 1998, Lauer reported from the Great Pyramids in Egypt, the Grand Canal in Venice, the Parthenon in Athens, the Taj Mahal in India and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. In 1999, his week-long adventure took him to Mount Everest, aboard the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt stationed in the Adriatic Sea, to the Coliseum in Rome and to the Great Wall of China. In 2000 he covered more than 39,000 miles, stopping at the Kilauea volcano in Hilo, Hawaii, Bilbao, Spain, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, Pisa and Florence in Italy and Iceland. For the 2001 trip, his stops included Machu Pichu, Peru, an oil rig off the coast of Scotland, Paris, Bangkok and Mykonos, Greece. 2002 found Lauer in Rio, Scotland, an escape in the Amazon, Marrakech/Rose City, the temples of Angkor Wat and jet-setting in Monaco. In 2004, he reported from a Mombo Camp in Botswana, on the alps of Zermatt, Switzerland, the Red Square in Moscow, Hong Kong and Necker Island: Sir Richard Branson’s private island. Most recently, in 2005, he traveled to Easter Island, Panama Canal, the slopes of Innsbruck, Austria, Shanghai, China, and Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Prior to joining WNBC-TV, Lauer hosted a daily, live, three-hour interview program, “9 Broadcast Plaza,” in New York from 1989 to 1991. Before that, his experience included hosting a number of weekly information and talk programs in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Richmond.
Lauer began his career in 1979 as a producer of the noon news on WOWK-TV in Huntington, West Virginia. In 1980, he was a reporter on the station’s 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.
Lauer is a graduate of Ohio University. He lives in New York with his wife, Annette Roque Lauer, their two sons, Jack and Thijs, and daughter, Romy.
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