Longtime TV news journalist Lisa Ling made her return to the medium on Tuesday, filing a story for CBS Mornings.
Ling’s first report as a CBS Newser wasn’t Israel-Hamas war-themed. It was about AP African American studies classes being taught in high schools and why students don’t think of it as “woke-ism,” but rather as a vital history class.
Ling joined Gayle King, Nate Burleson, and Vladimir Duthiers, filling in for Tony Dokoupil, at the roundtable on CBS Mornings to discuss this important story.
“Nothing I experienced in that class was hate-fueled, by any means,” said Ling. “When I think about how we were taught history, how the humanity of it was removed, and I do think that if we all had an opportunity to be exposed to more diverse histories, we might not be in this fractured state that we are in this country and around the world.”
Ling joined CBS News in May as a CBS News contributor and will be based in Los Angeles. Her reporting and feature pieces will appear across CBS News broadcasts and platforms.
Ling is well-known for her run as host and executive producer of the critically acclaimed CNN Original Series This Is Life, which concluded last December after a nine-season run on the cable news network. This Is Life launched in 2014 on CNN and followed Ling’s travels across the country as she introduced viewers to “sub-cultures and communities that are unusual, extraordinary and sometimes dangerous … often unknown or misunderstood.” She took viewers inside such issues as interracial families, sex trafficking, the alcohol epidemic, motorcycle gangs, religion, the impact of AI on relationships, and gun violence.
Before CNN, Ling spent six years as the executive producer and host of Our America for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN and also covered a variety of stories from around the world as host of National Geographic Ultimate Explorer. Prior to that, she was a co-host on ABC’s The View for three years and contributed to ABC’s Nightline.
Watch Ling’s first appearance on CBS Mornings below.
AP African American Studies, which may be the most controversial high school class in the U.S., is being piloted at hundreds of schools.
An educator teaching the course and some of his students told @lisaling why they believe it teaches “history that everybody should know.” pic.twitter.com/hQZS3sqgaF
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) October 10, 2023