Lisa Ling

Lisa Ling's Key Accomplishments Include . . .
Lisa Ling has been working in television since the age of 16 when she hosted Scratch, a nationally syndicated teen magazine show out of Sacramento. By the time she was 18, Lisa Ling had moved on to become one of the youngest reporters for Channel One News, a network seen in middle and high schools across the country. By the age of 25, Lisa Ling was a Channel One war correspondent, visiting violent hot spots around the globe. In the field, she hunted down cocaine processing labs, reported on refugee crises and shared tea with the Dalai Lama.

In 1994, Lisa Ling made her first trip to Afghanistan where young boys brandished anti-tank missiles and anarchy prevailed. In 1996, she participated in a joint investigation with Time magazine into a Russian company accused by international agencies of, among other things, smuggling nuclear weapons. All told, she has reported from more than two dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Algeria, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Japan, India and Iran, and produced eight documentaries for PBS, several of which won awards. Lisa Ling also serves as a contributing editor for USA Weekend and recently co-authored a book entitled Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride: Rituals of Womanhood.

From 1999-2002 Lisa Ling was best known to millions of Americans as co-host of Barbara Walters' hit daytime talk show, The View. Since joining National Geographic as the first female host of Explorer, Lisa Ling has covered war-torn Iraq, investigated the increasingly deadly drug war in Colombia, and examined the complex issues surrounding China's one-child policy.

Today, from stories about gang rape in the Congo, bride burning in India, the phenomenon of female suicide bombers and the hidden and dangerous culture inside American prisons, to the world's most dangerous gang, the Oprah Winfrey Show sends Lisa Ling all over the world to cover vitally important stories that much of the world chooses to ignore.

More About Lisa Ling. . .
Lisa Ling was featured in CNN's award winning documentary Planet in Peril. In the series' second installment, she tracked excessive shark fishing in Costa Rica, elephant poaching in Chad, and presented an inside look at the battle for the control over oil in Nigeria.

OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network has announced plans for an upcoming talk show featuring Lisa Ling in 2010.

• National Geographic Reports: A Global Perspective
  

  Keeping Lisa Ling in near constant motion, the National Geographic Channel's Explorer series takes viewers on unforgettable adventures and covers a wide range of human-interest stories, including the devastating natural disasters of the past year. Showing dramatic video clips from National Geographic’s Explorer, Ling shares her adventures and her personal success story and advocates having an open mind and heart to the issues surrounding us.

• Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride: Rituals of Womanhood
  

  Co-authored by Lisa Ling and anthropologist Joanne B. Eicher, the new National Geographic book Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride is a compelling exploration of all things female. Each chapter reveals the actions that connect a woman with herself, her family, her community, and other women. Ling presents the images and stories behind the book in this fascinating look at the historical, cultural, and emotional impact of women's rituals.

• Opening Minds and Hearts to the Issues Surrounding Us
  

  Keynote speaker Lisa Ling uses her role as a journalist to focus on positive social change. She discusses her own career path in her explanation of how journalism plays an important role in the world around us, and how, as times continue to change, it can be a force for propelling the world forward in new and positive ways.