Personal Narrative Essay: Our America With Lisa Lisa Ling

Most kids have ideas of what they want to be when they grow up. Astronauts and princesses, ninjas and cowboys, rock stars and pro athletes all seem to be an achievable profession when we are young. It is not until we age where we find that reaching for the stars can leave a person hitting back down on earth pretty hard. However, I was never one of these kids. My entire life I have never had any idea of what I wanted to do for a living, at least not until I started watching a television show called Our America With Lisa Ling. There was something about Lisa Ling that captivated my attention and left me inspired. For the first time in my life I know what I wanted to be. I wanted to be just like Lisa Ling. I admire Lisa Ling for her ability to connect with her audience and the depth she brings to the topic.

I cannot think of another person that can captivate my attention like Lisa Ling. She has the audience eating out of the palm of her hand from the second the show starts to the closing credits. Our America, hosted by Lisa Ling, takes its viewers on a one-way adventure to witness some of the darkest secrets our nation has to offer. Ling is the perfect person to

expose these dirty mysteries. I use to believe it was pure curiosity that peaked my love for Ling’s work. I do not experience the subjects she covers in my everyday life and I was intrigued by the issues. But it is not just curiosity that gets the viewers so involved with the subject at hand, it’s the emotion Ling brings to her work. In the past I have been afraid of emotion when writing or public speaking. I have a fear of feeling so vulnerable in front of others. But not Ling. Ling gets the audience to be emotionally invested in every matter she presents. I am now determined to bring out the emotion in the subjects I cover. I admire Lisa for her amazing ability to seduce her audience into being emotionally invested.
The Spread of HIV, transgender children and women trafficking are all topics that should not be taken lightly and these are just a few of the subjects Ling touches on throughout her career. Ling finds a way to ask the most mesmerizing questions that lead to the most shocking responses. She has this way to get through to every person she interviews. In the past I have found myself with the challenging task to interview certain people about past events but instead of creating a deep, intellectual, captivating piece, I generated a basic summary of a person’s life. My problem was getting through to the subject of my topic. The questions I asked were not heart wrenching enough to trigger emotion response. “Coming from an Asian Culture, I was always taught to respect my elders, to be a better listener than a talker”(Ling). In the future I will listen to the words of Ling and maybe in return, gain some of her wisdom. My questions were too over thought, sometimes it just best to sit back and let the matters speak for themselves.
Like all the great American Journalist in this world, Ling didn’t start out on the top.

According to Big Speak, Ling started her career as a co-host on the day-time talk show, The View. I found it hard to believe that such a knowledgeable person like Ling engaged in celebrity gossip but with further investigating I found that even in her early days, she brought intelligence and inspiration to her work. We can all learn a lot from Ling. Her ability to connect with her audience and the depth she brings to the topic are just a few reasons why I love Ling as a journalist. In my future work I will not fear emotion and I listen more then I talk. I know I will never be able to be Ling however, I can take the valuable lessons I learn from her and apply them to myself and hopefully, make myself a better

journalist.