James Andrew Laurie is an American writer, journalist, and broadcaster who is known principally for his work in Asia.
Education
Laurie graduated from the American University in Washington D.C. in 1973 with a degree in History and a certificate in Asian Studies. He underwent his postgraduate studies at George Washington University's Sino-Soviet Institute in 1973-74, under Professor Gaston Sigur.
Career
Laurie started a freelance career in the early 1970s writing for the Far Eastern Economic Review and other newspapers. In 1972, Laurie joined NBC News in Saigon to cover the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. In 1975, with cameraman Neil Davis, he covered the final phase of the Communist take over of Vietnam on April 30, remaining 26 days in the newly renamed Ho Chi Minh City. His work in Vietnam in 1975 for NBC News earned him the George Foster Peabody Award from the University of Georgia. Laurie reported for ABC News from 1978 to 1999. In 1980, his reporting in Vietnamese-occupied Cambodia resulted in a one-hour ABC News Close Up documentary This Shattered Land. In 1981, while working for ABC News, Laurie established the first American television network bureau in China. Later, he reported from Beijing during the Tiananmen Square student protests and subsequent crackdown of May–June 1989. Other assignments for ABC News included being part of the entourage of Filipino opposition leaderSenator Ninoy Aquino as he returned to the Philippines in August 1983 after three years of self-imposed exile in the United States, the coverage of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin in Russia from 1988 to 1991, the war in Bosnia 1992-1993, the elections in South Africa in 1994, the famine and US Marine operations in Somalia in 1995, and the continued conflict with Saddam Hussein when Laurie reported from Baghdad in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. In 1999, Laurie left active television news reporting and turned to television management for the News Corporation owned Asia network STAR Group Ltd. Laurie has co-produced, written, and narrated a number of television documentaries and long form broadcasts. They include ABC News Close-up Japan: Myths Behind the Miracle, 1981, China: The Yellow River, 1988, Cambodia: Boom Town, 1999, and Vietnam: Giaiphong 25 years later; 2000. In September 2005, Laurie was appointed Director of the broadcast journalism department of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre, the University of Hong Kong. In addition, he heads Focus Asia Productions Limited, a Hong Kong-based consulting and production company. He provides news consulting services to international TV News organizations, works closely with television channels in India, and produces programming for California Public Broadcasting. Since 2012, his main role has been as 'executive consultant' at CCTV America, a Chinese state enterprise that aims to exercise Chinese soft power in the Americas.
