With a career focusing on China, Vietnam, and Cambodia spanning fifty years.
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Jim Laurie
Global Media Consultant, China Specialist & Former NBC & ABC News Correspondent
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Bio
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With a career focusing on China, Vietnam, and Cambodia spanning fifty years, Jim Laurie provides first hand expertise on this rapidly changing Asian region. A frequent visitor to the region, Laurie most recently provided media and business consulting services in Beijing for two months in 2019 and eight months in 2018.
An Emmy Award winning journalist and broadcaster, Laurie served as a global correspondent for NBC News and ABC News for nearly 30 years. Currently he heads a Hong Kong based media consulting and television production firm: “Focus Asia Productions, Ltd.” His clients have included China Global television, Qatar’s Al Jazeera Network, the Shanghai Media Group, Bloomberg Hong Kong, and CNN International. From 2005 to 2012, he headed the broadcast program at the Journalism and Media Studies Program at the University of Hong Kong. He specialized in the study of television and digital media in China.
As a journalist, Laurie has been a witness to some of the defining moments in Asia’s history over five decades. In his new book The Last Helicopter, Laurie tells a story of a young woman left behind and a young reporter coming of age in a world of war; a gripping memoir of Cambodia and Vietnam in the 1970’s.
He began as a war correspondent in Vietnam and Cambodia. He was the only American network reporter to remain in Vietnam and cover the aftermath of the Communist victory April 30, 1975. His role then is portrayed in the 2015 Academy Award nominated film Last Days in Vietnam.
In Cambodia, Laurie was the first TV reporter to visit the nation in the immediate aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide which killed about two million people. His 1980, ABC TV documentary This Shattered Land chronicled the devastation. His riveting and highly personal memoir of the 1970’s – War, Love and Betrayal in Indochina – will be published in 2020.
In China, Laurie opened the first American television news bureau in Beijing in 1981. He interviewed Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979. Ten years later he covered the student demonstrations and military crackdown at Tian An Men Square.
In addition to Deng Xiaoping, Laurie has interviewed major historical figures in the region including China’s Premier Zhao Ziyang and President Jiang Zemin, the Dalai Lama and the late King of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk.
Laurie’s film documentaries for television include: Cambodia: This Shattered Land (ABC), Japan: Myths Behind the Miracle (ABC), China: Unruly Dragon (ABC), Vietnam: 25 years later (STARTV), Earth Factor: Making an Environmental Difference (US Public TV) and Cambodia Surgical Ward (BBC).
Laurie speaks on a variety of China and Asia related topics.
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Topics
Topics
China: A New Cold War
Vietnam & Cambodia: 45 Years On
Technology, Media Wars & the Chinese Mind
Videos
Videos
Humphrey Hawksley "Inside Story" with Jim Laurie Part 1 (Aug 2022)
Jim Laurie on 40th anniversary of the Vietnam War's end
Books
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