Jim Laurie

Last updated

James Andrew Laurie is an American writer, journalist, and broadcaster who is known principally for his work in Asia.

Contents

Education

Laurie graduated from the American University in Washington D.C. in 1973 with a degree in History and a certificate in Asian Studies. He underwent his postgraduate studies at George Washington University's Sino-Soviet Institute in 1973 to 1974, under Professor Gaston Sigur. [1]

Career

Laurie started a freelance career in the early 1970s as a radio stringer in Vietnam and Cambodia and writing for the Far Eastern Economic Review . In 1972, Laurie joined NBC News in Saigon to cover the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. In 1975, with cameraman Neil Davis, he covered the final phase of the Communist take over of Vietnam on April 30, remaining 26 days in the newly renamed Ho Chi Minh City. [2] His work in Vietnam in 1975 for NBC News earned him the George Foster Peabody Award from the University of Georgia. [3]

Laurie reported for ABC News from 1978 through 1999.

In 1980, his reporting in Vietnamese-occupied Cambodia resulted in a one-hour ABC News Close Up documentary This Shattered Land. [4]

In 1981, while working for ABC News, Laurie established the first American television network bureau in China. Later, he reported from Beijing during the Tiananmen Square student protests and subsequent crackdown of May–June 1989. [5]

Other assignments for ABC News included being part of the entourage of Filipino opposition leader Senator Ninoy Aquino as he returned to the Philippines in August 1983 after three years of self-imposed exile in the United States (witnessing the senator's eventual assassination at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport), [6] the coverage of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin in Russia from 1988 to 1991, the war in Bosnia 1992-1993, the elections in South Africa in 1994, the famine and US Marine operations in Somalia in 1995, and the continued conflict with Saddam Hussein when Laurie reported from Baghdad in the aftermath of the first Gulf War.

In 1999, Laurie left active television news reporting and turned to television management for the News Corporation owned Asia network STAR Group Ltd.

Laurie has co-produced, written, and narrated a number of television documentaries and long form broadcasts. They include ABC News Close-up Japan: Myths Behind the Miracle, 1981, China: The Yellow River, 1988, Cambodia: Boom Town, 1999 (an ABC News Nightline special), and Vietnam: Giaiphong 25 years later; (a one-hour Focus Asia special on News Corporation's STAR World Channel) 2000.

From September 2005 to December 2011, Laurie served as Director of the broadcast journalism department of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre, the University of Hong Kong. Archived 2007-05-01 at the Wayback Machine In 2005 he also founded Focus Asia Productions Limited, a Hong Kong–based consulting and production company. He has provided consulting services to international TV News organizations, including television channels in India, Qatar, Malaysia, and China.

In 2020, Laurie authored a book entitled "The Last Helicopter: Two Lives in Indochina," a memoir of his earliest days in Asia beginning in 1970.

Awards

In addition to the Peabody Award cited above, Laurie is the recipient of an Overseas Press Club Award for his 1984 reporting in the Philippines, two Emmy Awards, an Armstrong Award, and an Amnesty International Media Award for human right reporting.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Brokaw</span> American broadcast journalist and author (born 1940)

Thomas John Brokaw is an American retired network television journalist and author. He first served as the co-anchor of The Today Show from 1976 to 1981 with Jane Pauley, then as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 22 years (1982–2004). In the previous decade he served as a weekend anchor for the program from 1973 to 1976. He is the only person to have hosted all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press. He formerly held a special correspondent post for NBC News.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Arnett</span> New Zealand-American journalist (born 1934)

Peter Gregg Arnett is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Brinkley</span> American journalist (1920–2003)

David McClure Brinkley was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ninoy Aquino</span> Filipino politician (1932–1983)

Benigno "Ninoy" SimeonAquino Jr., was a Filipino politician who served as a senator of the Philippines (1967–1972) and governor of the province of Tarlac. Aquino was the husband of Corazon Aquino, who became the 11th president of the Philippines after his assassination, and father of Benigno Aquino III, who became the 15th president of the Philippines. Aquino, together with Gerardo Roxas and Jovito Salonga, helped form the leadership of the opposition towards then President Ferdinand Marcos. He was the significant leader who together with the intellectual leader Sen. Jose W. Diokno led the overall opposition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ed Bradley</span> American journalist (1941–2006)

Edward Rudolph Bradley Jr. was an American broadcast journalist and news anchor who is best known for reporting with 60 Minutes and CBS News.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Snepp</span>

Frank Warren Snepp, III is a journalist and former chief analyst of North Vietnamese strategy for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Saigon during the Vietnam War. For five out of his eight years as a CIA officer, he worked as interrogator, agent debriefer, and chief strategy analyst in the United States Embassy, Saigon; he was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit for his work. Snepp is a former producer for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, California. He was one of the first whistle blowers who revealed the inner workings, secrets and failures of the national security services in the 1970s. As a result of a loss in a 1980 court case brought by the CIA, all of Snepp's publications require prior approval by the CIA.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) is an American government-funded non-profit corporation operating a news service that broadcasts radio programs and publishes online news, information, and commentary for its audiences in Asia. The service, which provides editorially independent reporting, has the stated mission of providing accurate and uncensored reporting to countries in Asia that have poor media environments and limited protections for speech and press freedom and "advancing the goals of United States foreign policy."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morley Safer</span> Canadian-American reporter and correspondent (1931–2016)

Morley Safer was a Canadian-American broadcast journalist, reporter, and correspondent for CBS News. He was best known for his long tenure on the news magazine 60 Minutes, whose cast he joined in 1970 after its second year on television. He was the longest-serving reporter on 60 Minutes, the most watched and most profitable program in television history.

H. Martin "Marty" Haag, Jr. (1934–2004) was the news director at the perennially dominant ABC station, WFAA-TV, in Dallas, Texas from 1973 to 1989. During those 16 years, WFAA won five DuPont-Columbia Awards, more than any other local television news station during that time, and a George Foster Peabody Award in 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Soliven</span>

Maximo Villaflor Soliven was a Filipino journalist and newspaper publisher. In a career spanning six decades, he founded the Philippine Star and served as its publisher until his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanley Karnow</span> American historian and journalist

Stanley Abram Karnow was an American journalist and historian. He is best known for his writings on East Asia and the Vietnam War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Simon</span> American journalist (1941–2015)

Robert David Simon was an American television correspondent for CBS News. He covered crises, war, and unrest in 67 countries during his career. Simon reported the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, the Israeli-Lebanese Conflict in 1982, and the student protests in China's Tiananmen Square in 1989. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he and four of his TV crew were captured and imprisoned by Iraq for 40 days. He published a book about the experience titled Forty Days.

Neil Brian Davis was an Australian combat cameraman who was recognised for his work as a photojournalist during the Vietnam War and other conflicts in the region. He was killed in Bangkok on 9 September 1985, while filming a minor Thai coup attempt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Ross (journalist)</span> American investigative journalist (born 1948)

Brian Elliot Ross is an American investigative journalist who served as the Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC News until 2018. He reported for ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline, Good Morning America, 20/20, and ABC News Radio. Ross joined ABC News in July 1994 and was fired in 2018. His investigative reports have often covered government corruption. From 1974 until 1994, Ross was a correspondent for NBC News.

Sam Chu Lin was an American journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assassination of Ninoy Aquino</span> 1983 murder in Manila, Philippines

Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., a former Philippine senator, was assassinated on Sunday, August 21, 1983, on the apron of Manila International Airport. A longtime political opponent of President Ferdinand Marcos, Aquino had just landed in his home country after three years of self-imposed exile in the United States when he was shot in the head while being escorted from an aircraft to a vehicle that was waiting to transport him to prison. Also killed was Rolando Galman who was accused of murdering Aquino.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pauline Frederick (journalist)</span> American journalist

Pauline Frederick was an American journalist in newspapers, radio and television, as well as co-author of a book in 1941 and sole author of a book in 1967. in her nearly 50-year career, she covered numerous stories ranging from politics and articles of particular interest to women to military conflicts, and public interest pieces. Her career extended from the 1930s until 1981; she is considered one of the pioneering women in journalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Laurence</span> American television correspondent, author, print reporter and documentary filmmaker

John Laurence is an American television correspondent, author, print reporter and documentary filmmaker. He is known for his work on the air at CBS News, London correspondent for ABC News, documentary work for PBS and CBS, and his book and magazine writing. He won the George Polk Memorial Award of the Overseas Press Club of America for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and enterprise abroad" for his coverage of the Vietnam War in 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jose Mari Velez</span> Filipino television newscaster

José Mari Uhler Vélez was a Filipino lawyer, journalist, business executive, and activist best remembered for his long career as television newscaster anchoring The Big News on ABC 5 and for his service as an oppositionist delegate to the Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1971. He was one of the opposition delegates at the convention, which was why he was one of the first to be arrested when Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial law in September 1972. In April 1989, Velez became one of the first recipients of the Ninoy Aquino Fellowship Award for his accomplishments in journalism, with President Corazon Aquino stating that she believes he "share[s] in Ninoy's vision of preserving and strengthening our democracy."

Ken Kashiwahara is a broadcast journalist. He was a correspondent for ABC from 1974 to 1998, and was one of the first Asian American journalists to appear on national television. He was the companion of exiled Filipino politician Ninoy Aquino in returning to the Philippines when Aquino was assassinated at the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983.

References

  1. "Jim Laurie, Biography". Official Website - Jim Laurie. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
  2. "Communist Saigon / Laurie Report". Vanderbilt Television News Archive. Vanderbilt University. 11 April 2006. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
  3. "The Peabody Awards" . Retrieved 7 July 2015.
  4. "This Shattered Land". ABC.
  5. Thomas, Antony. "The Tank Man". Frontline. PBS. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
  6. Ninoy Aquino, Jim Laurie (16 September 2008). NINOY AQUINO's final moments featured on APTN!. YouTube.