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Editor's Note – Television news is changing fast — but in the Twin Ports, the people behind the desk still matter. For more than a generation, Duluth-Superior’s anchors have been more than voices on a screen; they’ve been the nightly narrators of our civic life. They’ve delivered tragedy with restraint, humor with humility, and truth with the steady cadence that keeps a region grounded.
This three-part series looks at the craft and character of the Northland’s leading anchors — the men and women who still make local television feel human. Dan Hanger of FOX 21, Darren Danielson of WDIO, and Laura Lee of Northern News Now represent three eras of the same calling: connection, clarity, and community.
In a time when national media feels distant and disposable, these anchors remain something different — familiar, fallible, and fiercely local. Their broadcasts tell us not just what happened today, but who we are when the cameras stop rolling.
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If you’ve lived in the Twin Ports for any stretch of time, chances are you’ve eaten dinner to the sound of Dan Hanger’s voice.
He’s been in our living rooms for nearly fifteen years now, anchoring the FOX 21 newscast with a mix of reliability, candor, and the kind of self-effacing humor that keeps people watching even when the stories are grim.
In a world of polished network anchors with immaculate posture and corporate smiles, Hanger stands apart. He’s local television’s version of the familiar barstool regular — someone who talks straight, occasionally stumbles over a word, and grins when things go sideways on live TV.
That authenticity, unfiltered and unplanned, has turned him from a newsreader into a kind of hometown character.
“I’ve always been someone who can’t stand anything fake or phony," said Hanger. "It makes no sense, especially if you are on television. People connect with people. People want authentic connections. And when it comes to the Northland, viewers don’t want fancy and pretentious. They want real, reliable and someone who cares enough to stay on the screen more than two years.”
He didn’t start that way. A Chicago native with a Columbia College journalism degree, Hanger arrived in Duluth almost twenty years ago chasing a young reporter’s dream: tell stories, break news, make it to air.
He started at KBJR, learned the rhythms of the Northland, and by 2010 found a steadier perch at FOX 21. Within a year, he was promoted to the main anchor desk — a spot he’s held longer than most coaches or mayors last around here.
Longevity means something in local media. Stations churn through talent the way lake winds churn through autumn leaves. Reporters burn out, anchors move to bigger markets, or they get downsized into oblivion.
But Hanger — he stayed. Through layoffs, ownership changes, and the slow death of appointment television, he’s remained the constant on the evening news. That kind of staying power is rare, and it’s earned, not gifted.
Watch him long enough and you see the craft. He knows his copy cold. He writes tight, conversational leads that sound like he’s talking to a friend, not performing for the camera. He produces his own pieces and edits scripts. It’s blue-collar broadcasting — nothing flashy, but solid and dependable.
You can feel the work ethic in every newscast.
“Thankfully, I have been able to be myself at FOX 21," he said. "It has been a learning experience to find the right balance of professionalism and entertainment, informing and commentary. And the 9 p.m. hour-long newscast has given me the opportunity to truly let stories breathe.
"Nothing makes me happier than being able to focus the first block of the newscast (often 10 minutes) toward multiple angles of a major news story – like severe weather – before getting to the rest of the day’s news after the commercial break. Nobody else does that in this market.”
The secret ingredient, though, is personality. Hanger’s appeal is that he doesn’t act like he’s above the news or the audience. He’s as likely to laugh at his own mistake as he is to press a mayor for an answer. When something odd happens on live TV — and plenty has — he lets the moment breathe. Those clips have gone viral not because he’s incompetent, but because he’s human. He reminds viewers that live television still lives, still breathes, still surprises.
Ask around town and you’ll hear the same refrain: “He’s just himself.” And that’s a high compliment in a profession full of artificial polish. His Chicago cadence never left him entirely, and neither did his curiosity. He asks the kind of plain questions that ordinary people would — not the jargon-soaked ones meant to impress the press corps.
When he covered the St. Louis County Board’s nondisclosure controversy this fall, the story wasn’t dressed up with theatrics. It was delivered like a neighbor explaining what he’d just seen down at City Hall.
Off-camera, Hanger’s civic footprint is almost as visible as his on-air one. He’s emceed Animal Allies’ Fur Ball, helped raise tens of thousands for the Polar Bear Plunge, and lent his voice to countless community fundraisers. That kind of involvement isn’t mandatory in television, but it’s the kind of goodwill that anchors build with their viewers one handshake at a time.
His beloved dog, Brewster, became a local celebrity of sorts — appearing in social posts, charity events, and newsroom cameos. When Brewster died in August 2025 at age 15, tributes poured in across social media. Brewster also appeared in many parades over the years with FOX 21. For many, it was a reminder that the man behind the desk has a beating heart like everyone else.
Yet, for all his warmth, Hanger isn’t just the clown prince of Duluth television. He can turn serious in a blink — steadying his tone for tragedy, grief, or politics. When the city is in crisis, he reads with gravity. When the community celebrates, he allows space for joy. There’s a rhythm to his delivery that only years of repetition can produce.
Still, there are limits. The television format demands brevity; stories that deserve five minutes get ninety seconds. Viewers expecting investigative firepower won’t find it on a nightly newscast. Hanger’s range is broad but bounded — he can question and contextualize, but he’s not filing deep exposés on city budgets or institutional failings. The grind of daily news rarely allows for that.
Some critics argue his good-natured demeanor softens hard stories, that his frequent humor undercuts gravitas. Maybe. But Duluth’s always been a town that prefers honesty over theatrics. In a smaller market, trust is currency, and Hanger has plenty in the bank. People may rib him, but they still tune in. They might not remember every story, but they remember the voice that told them.
There’s also something quietly instructive in how he’s navigated the digital transition. While legacy outlets chased clicks and cut reporters, Hanger doubled down on localism — the civic stuff that still matters when your neighbor’s basement floods or a new business opens downtown. He’s not trying to be a national influencer; he’s trying to be a reliable local anchor. That’s the job. And he seems content doing it.
“The old days of traditional television news are truly old and outdated," he said. "I believe it has to be a mix of serious and happy, what’s happening at the movies and in Hollywood – all while having a conversation with the audience, which often means being able to ad-lib past the script.
“In a time when people are feeling a deep connection to influencers, social media stars, and YouTube and podcast hosts, a news anchor really needs to open their life on social media and on air. Obviously, it’s not Me-TV, but there’s a way to do the hard work and report the big stories, while finding that balance and flow within a newscast that’s engaging, entertaining and especially local.”
Hanger's success says as much about this community as it does about him. The Twin Ports still value personality, loyalty, and familiarity. We reward people who stick around. Hanger embodies that small-market paradox — a journalist who could have chased a bigger paycheck elsewhere but chose roots over reach.
If you watch him closely, you’ll notice he occasionally glances at the prompter with a smirk, like he’s reminding himself not to take any of it too seriously. That’s a healthy instinct in an industry where self-importance runs rampant.
He’s had his viral moments, sure — the accidental pauses, the on-air giggles, the oddball live shots that found their way onto YouTube. But here’s the thing: those moments made him more trusted, not less. In an era when viewers sniff out phoniness instantly, being real counts more than being perfect.
When future media historians (if any survive the algorithm wars) look back at this era of local news, they might see Dan Hanger as one of the last of a dying breed — a hometown anchor who was actually from somewhere, reporting to people he knew, about things that mattered in their daily lives.
He’s proof that local journalism, even in its leanest years, still runs on people. Not consultants, not slogans, not slick digital rollouts — people who show up every night, tell the truth as best they can, and laugh when life inevitably interrupts the teleprompter.
“The magic potion behind FOX 21 has been being a family-owned company, which includes our current owner, Coastal Television," he said. "We don’t have the corporate BS from big ownership groups that mandate dramatic effects or language to stories like, THIS JUST IN! We’ve been allowed to stay away from the sensational and just tell a story with the straight-forward facts, without blowing a story up into something it really isn’t. Viewers in our area are smarter than that.”
And maybe that’s why Hanger endures. He reflects us to ourselves — a little imperfect, a little weary, but still here, doing the work.
So when the lights fade in the FOX 21 studio and another broadcast goes into the archive, Dan Hanger doesn’t walk out like a celebrity. He walks out like a craftsman clocking off after another shift in a trade he still believes in.
That’s not flash. That’s Duluth. And in this town, it’s still enough.
