Lisa Ling (born August 30, 1973 in Sacramento, California) is a Chinese American journalist, best known for her role as a co-host of ABC's The View, and host of National Geographic Ultimate Explorer.
She started in television at 16, when she was chosen as one of the four hosts of Scratch, a nationally-syndicated teen magazine show out based in Sacramento. At 18, she joined Channel One News as one of their youngest reporters and anchors. Among her roles was war correspondent, including assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. She attended the University of Southern California. During her time there, she had to miss her Russian Studies class to cover the 1992 Russian Referendum; her teacher understood.
Ling joined The View in 1999, representing the "young voice" on the panel. She drew fire for her comments after the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which she pointed out that Americans should think about why other people would want to attack.
In April 2001, she competed in and completed the Boston Marathon.
Ling left The View in 2002 to host National Geographic Ultimate Explorer on the National Geographic Channel.
In recent years, Oprah Winfrey has featured many of Ling's foreign country stories. Ling's title is "special contributor" .
In February of 2005, Ling became engaged to Philip Levine. Later, she split with him citing their time apart because of busy schedules.
