2009 Women's Showcase

MaryBeth Wilkinson, Fargo, ND
Vickie Erickson, Pelican Rapids, MN
Jennifer Cossette, West Fargo, ND

Lisa Ling
Lisa Ling is a special correspondent for the National Geographic Channel, and the Oprah Show. She also contributes to CNN, hosting the recent series, Planet in Peril. For Oprah, Ling has been sent to cover the Lord's Resistance Army and the crisis of AIDS orphans in Uganda, bride burning in India, and gang rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

s Ling was the first woman host of National Geographic's Emmy award-winning flagship series Explorer, where she investigated the increasingly deadly drug war in Colombia, examined the complex issues surrounding China's one-child policy, and explored the phenomenon of female suicide bombers in Chechnya and Israel's occupied territories. She also explored the hidden and dangerous culture inside American prisons and street gang MS-13.

Ling has been working in television for nearly two decades. At age 16, the Northern California native hosted "Scratch," a nationally syndicated teen magazine show. Ling moved on to become one of the youngest reporters for Channel One News, a network seen in middle and high schools across the country. By the age of 25, Ling was a Channel One war correspondent, visiting violent hot spots around the globe. In the field, she hunted down cocaine processing labs, reported on refugee crises and shared tea with the Dalai Lama. Early on, Ling was known for revealing her "view" of the world to millions of Americans as co-host of Barbara Walters' hit daytime talk show, The View. While she was a member of the team, The View won its first daytime Emmy.