Laura Ling

Laura Ling is an award-winning journalist, author and media executive. She most recently hosted the Discovery mini-documentary series, The Power of Kindness that looks at the scientific roots and benefits of being kind.  She hosts Everyday Bravery, a podcast about overcoming life’s biggest challenges.

Ling is the Head of Programming for Heart Television’s streaming service, Very Local, where she oversees the development and creation of original streaming content. She served as the Director of Development for Discovery Communications’s digital network, Seeker, which garnered hundreds of millions of views online.

As Vice President of Current TV’s news and documentary division, Ling helped launch the channel and created Vanguard, the network’s weekly investigative documentary series. She reported from dozens of countries on subjects including slave labor in the Amazon, the drug war in Mexico, Internet censorship in China, and women’s rights in Turkey.  Under her leadership, Vanguard received numerous prestigious awards including the Alfred I. DuPont Award and several Emmy nominations.

Ling has hosted two documentary series airing on the E! Network: E! Investigates and Society X with Laura Ling. The shows highlighted topics such as teen suicide, the challenges faced by military spouses, and underground youth subcultures in America.  As the host of Conquered on Z Living Network, Ling profiled awe-inspiring people who have broken boundaries to achieve their goals.

In March 2009, while reporting on the trafficking of North Korean women, Ling and her colleague Euna Lee were detained by North Korean soldiers along the Chinese-North Korean border. The two journalists were arrested and held captive in North Korea for 140 days before being granted a special pardon and returning to the United States. She documented her experience in the 2010 memoir, Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home, that she penned with her sister, Lisa.

As a correspondent for SoCal Connected, the hard-hitting news magazine series airing on KCET, Ling’s work was recognized with both an Emmy and a national Edward R. Murrow award. Ling has served as a producer for Channel One News and co-created Breaking it Down, an MTV documentary series. Her work has also been featured on ABC's Nightline, NBC, and PBS. She has written editorials for the Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post and CNN.com.

Ling was named one of Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year in 2009.  She is a Service Ambassador for Points of Light, the nonpartisan organization dedicated to solving social problems through voluntary service.  She resides in Mill Valley, California with her husband and two children.