Lester Holt is stepping into a more personal side of journalism with a new podcast built around the moments that permanently change people’s lives.

The Dateline correspondent announced Before & After with Lester Holt on Monday, August 31, revealing that the podcast will premiere September 14. Rather than focusing simply on what happened to his guests, Holt wants to explore the dividing line between who they were before a defining event and who they became afterward.

The first lineup includes Colin Kaepernick, Jeremy Renner, Gabby Giffords, Rebecca Scofield and Adrianne Haslet, each of whom experienced a life-changing moment that dramatically altered their paths.

Holt Wants to Explore What Happens After Life Changes

The idea for the podcast grew from Holt’s decades of reporting on people facing extraordinary circumstances.

“As a reporter, I’ve seen many people who, in the worst of circumstances, still manage to put one foot in front of the other and keep going,” Holt told People. “They figure their way.”

That resilience became the foundation for Before & After. Instead of simply asking guests to recount the event that changed their lives, Holt wants to understand how they dealt with everything that came afterward.

Among the guests is former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose decision to kneel during the national anthem in 2016 became a defining moment in his career and public life.

Jeremy Renner will also appear. His life changed dramatically after he was nearly killed in a snowplow accident in 2023.

Gabby Giffords, Rebecca Scofield and Adrianne Haslet round out the initial group of guests, giving the podcast a range of personal experiences and perspectives.

For Holt, the common thread is not necessarily the events themselves, but how people find a way forward once their previous lives have been disrupted.

No Prepared Questions, No Typical News Interview

Holt is also approaching the conversations differently from the way he handles traditional television journalism.

Rather than preparing a list of questions in advance, he plans to allow the interviews to develop naturally.

“I like to let the conversation kind of free flow,” he explained, noting that the approach is different from producing a conventional news report or a Dateline story.

The 67-year-old journalist sees the podcast as an opportunity to develop a different side of his reporting style. After decades in broadcast news, he said he wanted to use this new chapter of his career to “create and exercise these new news muscles.”

That means giving his guests room to take conversations in unexpected directions instead of steering them toward predetermined answers.

It also gives Holt a chance to become part of the conversation in a way television news has rarely allowed him to do.

Lester Holt Is Opening Up About More of His Own Story

One of the biggest differences between Before & After and Holt’s previous work will be how much of himself he is willing to share.

Viewers have long known Holt primarily through his work on NBC Nightly News and Dateline. He left NBC Nightly News in May 2025 after a decade as anchor, continuing with Dateline while moving into a new stage of his career.

The podcast will give audiences a more personal version of the veteran journalist, including conversations about subjects such as racial identity.

“Even to open up that door, that’s a lot for me,” Holt admitted.

He acknowledged that discussing those subjects publicly is outside the boundaries of what he would normally do in his traditional journalistic roles. But the informal nature of the podcast, he said, creates space for audiences to see more of his personality and understand who he is beyond the news anchor they are accustomed to watching.

Before & After with Lester Holt premieres Monday, September 14.

Source: https://www.tvinsider.com/