Childhood Hero Alert

I went to see Tori Amos last week. It was awesome and I figured that once I got myself together that could be my next blog post. But I was wrong! Because last night I saw Lisa Ling and it was one of the best days I could have living in a new town with no friends. I was excited when I heard she was coming, but I did not expect myself to cry when she walked onto the stage.

Are you familiar with Lisa Ling? She started out as a reporter for Channel 1, a news network that we watched every day during high school (Anderson Cooper was also on Channel 1 at the time). I loved her. She was brave and adventurous and traveled the world (often to war zones) and she was not even twenty years old. If I had not been so lame I would have sent them an audition tape. I wanted to be like her.

Eventually she left Channel 1 and got a job on The View. I liked her on that show but I thought it was a huge waste of talent. During her speech last night she explained why she took that job: She was used to covering huge stories, and if she went to a network news program, she would have been fighting to cover insignificant stories she didn't care about. She said she still misses the open forum of The View, but she was very happy when she left to be the host of National Geographic Explorer. Now she also works for Oprah. She's done stories on Columbia's civil war, systematic rape in the Congo, Indian prisons where mothers are incarcerated with their children, and adoption in China. She showed a longer clip from the adoption piece and I cried again.

She's a fascinating person, mainly because she's found ways to have a significant, meaningful career in journalism without ever working for a major news network. The stories she does are so important (more important than OJ or the paternity of Anna Nicole's baby), but they would never get covered, especially at length, in the mainstream news. She encouraged the crowd to write to the networks and ask for more serious journalism, and to take time out from pop culture media. She mentioned that if Americans had a chance to know and care about what's going on elsewhere in the world, they would. I think she just needs to have her own network. There are not enough people watching Oprah or National Georgraphic.


I also freaked out because I just got my first camera phone so I was able to take crappy pictures for posterity.

And here are some news stories about her lecture:
http://media.www.bsudailynews.com/media/storage/paper849/news/2007/11/09/News/Lisa-Ling.Discusses.Global.Issues-3090729.shtml
http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007711090343