“Lisa Ling is a premier documentary journalist. She created a new, unique, distinctive style of documenting previously unknown stories with her intelligence and depth. There are no comparable journalists. I admire her greatly.” – Connie Chung
Lisa Ling is an award-winning journalist and one of the most influential and longest-standing Asian journalists in history. In her CNN Original Series, This is Life, Ling goes on a gritty, breathtaking journey to the far corners of America, finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. The show makes her one of the first and only to have produced over 80 episodes of nonfiction television that have never been fronted. Before coming to CNN, Ling was a field correspondent for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and contributor to ABC News’ “Nightline” and National Geographic’s “Explorer.” She has reported from dozens of countries, covering stories about gang rape in the Congo, bride burning in India and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, among other issues that are too often ignored. Ling got her start in journalism as a correspondent for Channel One News where she covered the civil war in Afghanistan at 21 years of age. She later went on to become a co-host of ABC Daytime’s hit show “The View,” which won its first daytime Emmy during her time at the show. Ling has also served as a special correspondent for CNN’s “Planet in Peril” series and is a contributing editor for USA Today’s USA Weekend magazine. In 2011, her acclaimed documentary journalism series, “Our America with Lisa Ling,” was created and began airing on OWN. Ling is the co-author of “Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride: Rituals of Womanhood” and “Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home,” which she penned with her sister, Laura. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the California Museum. Widely respected and loved for her incisive empathy, Ling is an icon to journalists and creatives everywhere.