Lisa Ling

LISA LING is the executive producer and host of This is Life on CNN, now in its seventh season. For five seasons prior, Ling’s EP’d and hosted Our America on OWN.  She was also a field correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show and contributor to ABC News’ Nightline.  She’s 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 was the first female host of National Geographic’s flagship show Explorer which sent her to cover the phenomenon of female suicide bombing, the spread of the MS-13 gang,, and the humanitarian crisis inside North Korea. She 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 to become a cohost of ABC Daytime’s hit show The View, which won its first daytime Emmy during her time at the show. Ling is the coauthor of Mother, Sister. Daughter, Bride: Rituals of Womanhood and Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and The Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home that she penned with her sister, Laura. In 2014, President Obama appointed Ling to the Commission on White House Fellows.  She is an advisory board member for Fostering Media Connections, The Amani Project, and a Baby2Baby angel. Ling lives in Santa Monica with her husband Paul Song and daughters Jett and Ray.