Kelly Stewart

Staff Writer

ANAHEIM, Calif. – On Saturday at the JEA/NSPA Nation High School Journalism Convention in Anaheim, well-known reporter Lisa Ling gave an enlightening speech on her life and how she came to be a journalist.

“I thought [the speech] was really interesting,” centerspread editor Lauren Ussery said. “I mean, I see her on talk shows all the time, but I felt like in person she had more emotion and it’s nice to hear an experienced journalist talk.”

Accompanied by her sister Laura, Ling regaled her experiences, from dreaming of becoming a star on TV so that she could have a better life, to getting her own show on OWN (Opera Winfrey Network) entitled Our America with Lisa Ling.

Ling grew up just outside of Sacramento, California with her sister, her parents having divorced when she was young.

“I think it’s cool that she came from a community just like Coppell, and she became such an important world figure,” opinions editor Michelle Pitcher said.

Even as a girl, Ling dreamed of being on TV, so that she could have a better life than the one that she was living. Her chance came when she auditioned to be on “Scratch”– a teen TV program at the time. The show was run by a company that also ran a news station, and Ling used the show’s proximity to get a job as an intern.

Later, Ling got the opportunity to work with Channel 1, a news program aimed at young people, which was watched by 8.5 million high school students. This job sent her to Afghanistan to cover the then under-reported civil war. However, what was most alarming she says, was the fact that almost no one knew about these children back in America. It was then that she decided to become a journalist.

“I really wanted to try and share what was going on in the world,” Ling said in her speech. “But I also wanted to cover what was going on domestically because the news just didn’t cover it.”

Today, Ling is trying to bring more attention to the sexual trafficking of American women, while hosting her show on OWN.