As news shows evolve -or, as some would ontend, evolve - to fit our shortening attetion spans, viewers are stIll eager to tune into Lisa Ling's in-depth reports from around the world.
Next time you’re on a bad business trip, think
of Lisa Ling sneaking into North Korea. A few months before its
October nuclear test, under the pretense of being a medical assistant,
she spent 12 days shadowed by six government minders chasing a story
about life in arguably the most repressive country in the world.
And this was her dream trip.
Ling has been a correspondent for The National
Geographic Channel for the last two years and is a correspondent
to Oprah Winfrey ’s show. Her segments for Oprah have included
everything from the AIDS orphan crisis in Uganda to bride burning
in India to gang rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her
move from a routine, couch-bound gig co-hosting the all-female chat
fest “The View ” to peripatetic world correspondent
has,weirdly, brought her calm. “I’m a really ambitious
person and always had a sense of what I was going to do next. I
can’t imagine doing anything else right now — to be
out in the world and do specials.
“I’m by no means an adrenaline junkie,
I’m just truly fascinated by these stories; I get very intrigued,”
she says.
Ling estimates that she has spent no more than
15-20 days in Los Angeles this year,where she has taken temporary
shelter in her mother’s house after selling her New York City
apartment and putting all her stuff in storage. “Why is it
that I can’t stay home? I love being in the field,”
she says with a laugh.
Traditionally,there are two sorts of women in the news business:the
Diane Sawyer/super glamorous/“I wish I could be her”
type,versus the Meredith Vieira/Katie Couric/“she’s
just like me ” kind. Ling has created a third category of
newswoman:one who’s real and ideal and has logged more miles
reporting this year than all of the big-name news ladies combined.
Watching her piece for National Geographic about two doctors who
run free cataract clinics in the mountains of Nepal, she feels like
effortless good company. She asks interesting questions,moves easily
among the natives her group meets along the way, even observes gruesome
eye surgery without making herself the focus of the story.
“She jumps in the van,drags her own bag
and is ready to go. There’s no support army,” says Charles
Poe, the former executive producer of National Geographic Explorer,who
traveled to Iraq with Lisa in search of missing national treasures
from the Central Bank in Baghdad. “We call it boots on the
ground,” says Poe, describing Ling’s reporting style.“
She’s someone we can send in and say ’get what you can
get’…she always delivers.”
At the age of 16, after auditioning on a whim,
Ling was one of four teenagers chosen from among 500 who auditioned
to be on a show called “Scratch.” The teen magazine
show was recorded at the CBS affiliate in Sacramento, and Ling used
that opportunity to get an internship writing and producing in the
news department.
When high school ended,Ling took a job with Channel
One News,the in-school network seen in middle and high schools across
the country. One of eight reporters (another one being Anderson
Cooper of CNN), Ling worked a 40-hour week traveling the country
and world, all while attending the University of Southern California.
Moscow, South Korea,Afghanistan,Pakistan…she rattles off the
list of places she traveled to as a young journalist at Channel
One,places she never imagined she’d be. It was then that she
knew she was on to something professionally.
She prefers what’s called long form stories—as
opposed to the two to five minute segments favored by broadcast
and cable news. Her stories are about social issues with a capital
“S,” both locally and globally, especially as they pertain
to women.
Poe says he’s always impressed by Ling’s
innate ability to connect with her story subjects —even when
there’s a language barrier—and her ability to make friends
with people no matter where she is. But Ling will tell you herself
friendships aren’t so easy with a life like hers. She is closest
to her family, and last year she was engaged but it didn’t
work out. A situation she describes as: great guy, wrong time. There
are some personal stories that will have to wait.
It’s a big world, and Lisa’s not
done reporting it.
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