Journal reporter named CNBC on-air contributor

Wall Street Journal staff reporter Lee Hawkins has been assigned to work as an on-air contributor at CNBC as part of the Journal’s content sharing agreement with the network.

Hawkins will remain an employee of the Journal. Previously, Hawkins covered General Motors Corp. from the Detroit bureau for the Journal.

Hawkins began the assignment after appearing frequently on CNBC as a guest commentator. His television stories on CNBC have included interviews with best-selling author James Patterson, media moguls Russell Simmons and Bob Johnson, fashion icon Tommy Hilfiger, and a profile on hedge fund guru Eddie Lampert.

Prior to covering GM and the challenges facing America’s Big Three automakers for the Journal, Hawkins worked as a business reporter for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal.

Hawkins is currently working on his first book, “America’s New Black Overclass,” which will be published by Gotham Books, a division of Penguin Publishing, in 2008. The New Black Overclass, a term Hawkins coined, is made up of black entrepreneurs in the sports, entertainment and media industries who have arisen in the last decade to create the largest population of black multimillionaires in history.

A native of St. Paul, he is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. Hawkins earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was the editorial page editor of the Badger Herald student newspaper.

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