Lara Logan's Journey to the Fringes of Media

'Atlantic' profiles the journalist who was once one of the most respected in her profession
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 18, 2023 9:02 AM CDT
Lara Logan's Journey to the Fringes of Media
Lara Logan in 2013.   (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

She was once one of the biggest and most respected names in TV journalism, the subject of flattering stories herself, such as one christening her the "War Zone It Girl" by the New York Times in 2005. Today, Lara Logan is too extreme even for far-right Newsmax, after doing things such as comparing Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. What happened? Elaina Plott Calabro tries to figure it out in a lengthy Atlantic profile headlined "A Star Reporter's Break From Reality." The story tracks Logan's life and career, including the sexual assault she endured while reporting from Egypt in 2011, followed by a battle with breast cancer, a stretch of life in which she has said she "wanted to come apart;" her marriage to a Pentagon contractor with a "penchant for conspiracy theories;" her rise to 60 Minutes and subsequent fall after a botched report on Benghazi.

Her career in 2023 consists mostly of giving speeches at small events in her home state of Texas, and Calabro has a telling example: "We had to cut her off because she was going too long," an organizer of a GOP women's group says. Logan spoke about how "the world is on fire," and "your kids are being exposed to cats being raped," and "elections are stolen" and "we’ve lost our country," says the woman, adding: "It’s a Christmas lunch, mind you." Calabro writes that she has covered figurative bomb-throwers who don't actually believe what they're saying. "I don’t think Logan is one of these figures." She seems to be the same in private as in public. "In recent years, many Americans have embraced conspiracy theories as a way to give order and meaning to the world’s chance cruelties," write Calabro. "Lara Logan seems to have done the same." Read the full story, which Logan denounced as "another hit piece" against her. (More Lara Logan stories.)

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