The outgoing anchor spoke at two awards ceremonies within the past week

Lester Holt at the Telemundo Center

Within the past week, Lester Holt delivered his first public remarks since announcing that he would be stepping down from the NBC Nightly News after a decade-long run. The outgoing anchor accepted the University of Kansas’ William Allen White National Citation Award on Thursday and gave the keynote speech at the Long Island University’s George Polk Awards on April 4.

Both occasions saw Holt reflecting on his upcoming departure from behind the Nightly News desk, which is scheduled to take place at the beginning of the summer. He will transition to a full-time role on Dateline NBC, where he’s been a principal anchor since 2011.

“I look forward to several more years as a working journalist,” Holt remarked while accepting the William Allen White honor.

In his April 4 address to the audience at the George Polk Awards, Holt praised the “talented” Dateline team that includes new addition Blayne Alexander, as well as Andrea Canning, Josh Mankiewicz, Keith Morrison, and Dennis Murphy.

“In a career spanning 45 years, I have answered the bell for the big story far more times than I will ever be able to count,” he said. “I have traveled much of the country and much of the world. Interviewing people of great power as well as people who are powerless. The job has been an all-access pass like no other for which I am profoundly grateful.”

Holt addressed the future of journalism in his remarks at the University of Kansas, saying the profession was currently in a “fight for its life.”

“A world without a healthy press is a world where the important questions are not asked or answered,” he noted. “Where the powerful operate unchallenged.”