CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Lara Logan
Award-Winning Foreign Correspondent & Correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes
Lara Logan's bold, award-winning reporting from war zones has earned her a prominent spot among the world's best foreign correspondents. Named a full-time 60 Minutes correspondent in May 2012, the 2014-15 season will be her 10th contributing to the newsmagazine. Logan also is a correspondent for 60 Minutes Sports, a new edition of 60 Minutes launched on the Showtime Network in January 2013. She is the co-host of the CBS News special broadcast Person to Person.
She previously served as CBS News chief foreign correspondent, a role she filled while also contributing to 60 Minutes beginning in 2005. Her standout reports for 60 Minutes include the first English language interview with the Danish spy who claimed he helped the U.S. target and kill Anwar Al Awlaki, the American-born Muslim cleric and wanted terrorist. Logan's unprecedented access to the U.S. Immigration and Custom's Enforcement's takedown of the largest drug cartel in law enforcement history provided a fascinating look into international organized crime.
In February 2011, Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten by a mob in Tahrir Square while reporting a story for 60 Minutes on the Egyptian Revolution. She broke her silence about the incident on 60 Minutes to draw attention to the plight of women, particularly female journalists covering war zones. Logan's September 2010 60 Minutes report "A Relentless Enemy" from the battlefield in Afghanistan earned her electronic journalism's highest award, a DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton. Another from that war zone, a five-segment series for the CBS Evening News about U.S. Marines on patrol, was named an RTDNA/Edward R. Murrow Award winner.
Her other notable reports for 60 Minutes include the Emmy-winning profile of Medal of Honor winner Salvatore Giunta; an interview with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde; a report on the controversial practice of raising exotic game on U.S. ranches; a penetrating interview with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto; and an interview with Gen. John Abizaid when he was the Commander of United States Central Command.
Logan's reports were an integral part of CBS News' coverage of the war in Iraq, where she lived for almost five years. She was the only journalist from an American network in Baghdad when the U.S. military invaded the city, reporting live from Firdos Square as the statue of Saddam fell. Logan broke the story of the abuse of special needs Iraqi orphans on the CBS Evening News in June 2007, a report that made headlines around the world. Also that year, she reported from Pakistan on the death of Benazir Bhutto and its aftermath.
Logan's reporting from the frontlines of Afghanistan and with the Green Berets searching for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden appeared on 60 Minutes II and on the CBS Evening News, The Early Show and CBS News Radio, for which she served as a general assignment reporter. While reporting a 60 Minutes II story about the war near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 2005, the military vehicle Logan was riding in hit a double-tank mine. The explosion seriously wounded two soldiers; she escaped with minor injuries.
Logan received an Emmy Award, an Overseas Press Club Award and a Murrow Award for "Ramadi: On the Front Line," a powerful 2006 report on American troops under fire in Ramadi, Iraq, a piece Logan and her producer shot themselves while embedded with a U.S. military unit. She has also received five American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Awards: in 2008 for Outstanding Feature-Hard News for the Iraqi orphans story; in 2004 for Individual Achievement for Best Reporter/Correspondent; in 2003 for Best News Story for her CBS Evening News report on the attempted assassination of Afghan President Hamid Karzai; in 2002 for Best News Story for her CBS News Radio coverage of the war in Afghanistan; and in 2000 for Best News Story for her CBS News Radio coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
She received the David Bloom Award in 2008 from the Radio & Television Correspondents Association for excellence in enterprise reporting and the 2007 Association of International Broadcasters' Best International News Story Award for her report on the Taliban.
Before formally joining CBS News in 2002 as a 60 Minutes II correspondent, Logan already had 14 years of journalism experience, including 10 years in the international broadcast news arena. She served as a correspondent for GMTV, the weekday morning news program of Great Britain's ITV (2000-02), and as a freelance correspondent for CBS News Radio, a role that included occasional appearances on the CBS Evening News. Logan reported on the war in Afghanistan, Middle East violence, the Mozambique floods, the land invasions in Zimbabwe and the India earthquake. Previously, she served in a variety of freelance assignments, including as a correspondent for ITN and Fox/SKY, an assignment editor for CBS News and ABC News in London, and an editor/producer for NBC, CBS and the European Broadcast Union (1996-99). Logan also served as a freelance correspondent for CNN (1998-99), covering the U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania, the conflict in Northern Ireland and the war in Kosovo, among other stories.
She got her start in broadcast journalism in Africa as a senior producer for Reuters Television (1992-96). Logan began her career as a general news reporter for the Daily News (1990-92) and the Sunday Tribune (1988-89), both located in Durban, South Africa.
Logan was born in Durban and was graduated from the city's University of Natal in 1992 with a degree in commerce. She also holds a diploma in French language, culture and history from the Universite de L'Alliance Francaise in Paris. In addition to French, Logan speaks Afrikaans and basic Portuguese.
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