Laura Ling

At 47 years old, Laura Ling physical status not available right now. We will update Laura Ling's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

She first worked as a correspondent for KCET's SoCal Connected and producer at Channel One News. She co-created Breaking it Down, a documentary series on MTV that aired between 1999 and 2001.

Next Ling joined Current TV, where she reported on issues about Cuba, Indonesia, the Philippines, Turkey, the West Bank, and the Amazon River, as well as about shantytowns in Sao Paulo, Brazil, gangs and homeless teens in Los Angeles, and underground churches in China. Prior to her detention, she had reported on the Mexican Drug War.

When Ling was captured and detained, she was undercover making a documentary about North Korean defectors, who were primarily women. She explored the dangers they faced after crossing the Chinese border at the Tumen River, including forced marriages and trafficking, deportation, and being criminalized.

Ling hosted a one-hour news show on E! Network, entitled E! Investigates, which premiered on December 8, 2010. The show targeted a younger audience and focused on pop culture. Her second show on E! was called Society X with Laura Ling, which aired on October 3, 2013. In addition, Ling hosted a nightly news program on KCET, which focused on local news in Los Angeles. Ling has also worked on projects for Nightline, NBC, PBS, and The WB (now The CW).

In 2015, Ling partnered with The ONE Campaign to make a documentary How Africa is Hacking the Its Energy Crisis, which was posted on the Seeker Stories YouTube channel. Ling also created and reported on Rituals with Laura Ling, which was also posted to the Seeker Stories YouTube channel.

In the last week of March 2009, North Korea announced that two American journalists were detained and would be indicted and tried for illegally entering the country. On May 3, 2009, it was announced that Ling and fellow journalist Euna Lee were the journalists who had been detained, after they attempted to film refugees and defectors along the border with China. In June 2009, they were sentenced to 12 years in a labor prison for illegal entry into North Korea, and unspecified hostile acts.

Of the trial, Ling later said,

Many in the media called it a show trial. The US government made diplomatic efforts to oppose this sentence before the women were released in August 2009.

Lisa Ling stated that when her sister and Lee left the United States, they never intended to cross into North Korea. She also said that her sister had required medical treatment for an ulcer.

In 2010, Ling co-wrote a memoir with her sister Lisa, Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home.

Many in both the United States and South Korea have accused Ling and Lee of creating a diplomatic crisis with North Korea during a particularly tense emergency that was already underway between North Korea and the United States. Both Ling and Lee addressed these allegations in their memoirs. Some human rights activists in South Korea have accused Lee and Ling of needlessly placing North Korean refugees in danger by not being more careful with their tapes and notebooks in the event they were apprehended.

In the efforts to negotiate Ling and Lee's release, diplomatic envoys were brought up as an option, and many different envoys were considered including the Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, former US President Jimmy Carter, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former US President Bill Clinton. The latter was ultimately accepted as an envoy by the North Korean regime. Ling was pardoned along with Lee, and they returned to the United States following an unannounced visit to North Korea by Bill Clinton on August 4, 2009.

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