Lisa Ling: Assault on Lara Logan 'Really Disturbing'
ET |
In the wake of news that CBS News correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten by a frenzied mob in Egypt last week, Lisa Ling tells ET, "What happened to Lara is devastating."
"She's an amazing journalist and a very courageous one," says the broadcast journalist, whose own sister Laura Ling made headlines when she was imprisoned in North Korea while covering human trafficking on the border. "My heart goes out to [Lara] and I hope she recovers from this and continues to do the extraordinary work she's always done."
Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a "60 Minutes" story the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down. She was separated from her crew, surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She later reconnected with the CBS team and returned to the U.S., where she received medical care and is currently recovering.
Ling says she first heard the story on Twitter: "The wires were going crazy about it, and I was just devastated to learn what happened to her and her team," she says. "This assault on journalism and journalists is really disturbing, and I hope that it doesn't discourage news outlets from continuing to send people out, because the need for storytelling and the need to know what's happening in the world has never been more urgent."
