Kyung Lah Biography
Kyung I. Lah is a Korean American journalist and CNN senior national correspondent based in Los Angeles. She started as a local news reporter in the US, worked at CNN International in Asia before returning to US in 2014. She has also worked as a morning reporter and a midday anchor for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles and as a reporter for WWMT-TV in Kalamazoo, Michigan, WBBM-TV in Chicago and KGTV-TV in San Diego.
Kyung Lah Age
Kyung is 51 years old, she was born in 1971 in Seoul, South Korea and grew up in Streamwood, Illinois. She celebrates her birthday on August 27.
Kyung Lah Height
She stands at a height of height 5 feet 5 inches tall.
Kyung Lah Korean
Lah is Korean but she revealed in article that after they immigrated to the US, they stopped speaking Korean at home, which forever stunted her Korean, so they could blend in with the Americans. She added that her parents encouraged her to watch the evening news in Chicago where they lived so she would learn “White people English.” They would point out the sole Asian face they could find on TV, a Chicago anchor named Linda Yu. She spoke English just like the White and Black people on TV, the only living example of what they could be.
Kyung Lah Nationality
Lah is a Korean-American national.
Kyung Lah Education
She earned her B.A. in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993. While there, she used to write a column for the Daily Illini.
Kyung Lah Family
Kyung is the daughter of Korean immigrants, although their names are not in the public domain. Her family immigrated to the US in 1975, when she was 4 years old. They owned a convenience store although they held master’s degrees.
She is the niece of Tai K. Oh, He was a business professor, consultant, and author of the book “The Asian Brain Drain”. He was the owner of Oh Imports, along with his wife Gretchen. He passed away in 2010.
Kyung Lah Brother
She was brought up alongside her brother, Andrew Lah, a lawyer and an adjunct professor of Law. He is the Managing Partner at Moeel Lah Fakhoury LLP, a litigation boutique specializing in complex criminal and civil litigation. He was previously a Managing Attorney with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. He created the Community Lawyering and Civil Rights Unit at the Oakland City Attorney’s Office where he oversaw affirmative civil rights litigation, worked as a complex litigator at a national law firm, and was a federal public defender.
He also teaches criminal procedure, evidence, and police use of force at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and Golden Gate Law School.
Kyung Lah Husband
Kyung is married to Curtis Vogel, former television producer and Vice President at Edendale Strategies in Los Angeles, California. He worked as an executive producer of morning and midday newscasts at NBC’s WMAQ-TV, and later moved to L.A., where he did freelance producing for NBC. He thereafter, joined TDS Telecommunications LLC as a news director. While there, he started a newsroom from scratch from hiring employees to designing the newsroom and set and implementing standards for Central Oregon Daily, the daily newscasts on the ABC affiliate (KOHD) and CBC affiliate (KBNZ) in Bend, Oregon.
Kyung Lah Children
Kyung and her husband have two children together with their first child, a daughter, born in 2011. Her children are biracial as her husband is White rural Southern. She once tweeted a part of her daughters letter under the theme of “what I like about myself.” In the letter she wrote that she liked her eyes as they look like her Umma’s (meaning mom). Lah said the line caught her by surprise as it showed her daughter is unafraid and proud to look Asian.
Kyung Lah CNN
Kyung is a National Correspondent for CNN based in Los Angeles. She returned to CNN US from CNN International in 2012. She has covered many political topics and was assigned to cover Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar during the 2020 Democratic nomination for US President. She also covered the political and cultural impact of the surge of women candidates who ran for US Congress in 2018 and was also one of the political correspondents covering the 2020 campaign.
She has covered number of stories in both of her roles with the network. She traveled to Malaysia and Australia to cover missing flight MH370, to Malaysia and Ukraine for the crash of flight MH17, to Japan to cover the historic ambassadorship of Caroline Kennedy on the 50th anniversary of her father’s assassination.
She also traveled to the demilitarized zone of South Korea and covered the fears in Asia as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea escalated tensions with the US. She exclusively interviewed serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin shortly before he was executed on death row as well as a number of alleged sexual harassment victims of former US congressman Bob Filner. She reported on the Newtown massacre, the LAX shooting rampage, the Asiana plane crash, the historic Colorado flood and mudslides, and the Yarnell Hill fire that killed 19 firefighters.
While she was the Tokyo correspondent for CNN, she covered the 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan. She remained in Japan covering the 15,000 killed in the tsunami and the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 25 years at the Fukushima nuclear power plant triple meltdown. She was the first US broadcast journalist to be taken inside the meltdown at the one year anniversary of the disaster. She has reported extensively throughout East Asia, reporting stories of conflict and human struggle from China, Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Pakistan.
In May 2008 when a huge earthquake shook China’s Sichuan Province, Lah flew to the epicenter. She reported breaking news, the visits of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and China Premier Wen Jiabao, as well as remarkable stories of struggle and survival.
Lah has also served as a national correspondent for CNN Newsource based out of Washington, D.C. Some of the stories she covered included the ‘Jena 6’ racial demonstrations and the Virginia Tech and Amish school shootings.
Lah joined CNN Newsource from KNBC-Los Angeles, where she served as a morning news reporter for Today in L.A. and as a midday anchor. She was fired after an alleged affair with her field producer Jeff Soto. Prior to that, she was a reporter in Chicago at the CBS affiliate, WBBM.
Lah also worked as a general assignment and long-form investigative reporter at ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego, where she won a regional Emmy for specialty reporting. Her first reporting position was at CBS affiliate, WWMT in Kalamazoo, Mich.
Kyung Lah Awards
Lah has received numerous awards including a local Emmy for investigative reporting, Best Criminal Justice/Legal Affairs Award from the San Diego Press Club, and recognition from the Associated Press and the Michigan Association of Broadcasters.
Kyung Lah Salary
Kyung earns an average annual salary ranging between  $104,762 – $114,310.
Kyung Lah Net Worth
She has an estimated net worth of $2 million.
Kyung Lah Political Party
Kyung has been involved in covering political stories but she has never publicly declared her political party. She covered the 2020 Democratic nomination for US President, assigned to covering Sen. Kamala Harris and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. She also covered the political and cultural impact of the surge of women candidates who ran for US Congress in 2018 and during the 2020 campaign he was one of the political correspondents.