Jim Laurie has been a journalist, broadcaster, producer, and media consultant for more than 50 years.

For nearly 30 years, Jim was an international correspondent for NBC News and ABC News.  He reported from all continents of the world and covered some of the major stories of the late 20th Century – in Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Russia and South Africa.   

Since January 2005, Laurie has headed his consulting and production company – FocusAsia Productions Ltd.  

In September 2020, Jim completed a highly personal memoir of his earliest days in Cambodia and Vietnam 1970-1975.  For more see   http://www.jimlaurie.com/book    

Jim began his career freelancing in radio news (Metromedia and NBC News) and in print for the Washington Post and the Far Eastern Economic Review before moving into television in the mid 1970’s. 

His first assignments in Asia landed him in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970 to cover the Indochina War. After flying out of Phnom Penh on the American helicopter evacuation of April 12, 1975, he returned to Vietnam.   He became the only American network correspondent to witness the communist take over of Saigon at the end of April.  His reporting then for NBC News earned him several major television commendations including a George Foster Peabody Award.

Jim roamed the world as a television correspondent for NBC News and ABC News. He reported from Tokyo, Beijing, Manila, Delhi, Islamabad, Kabul, Moscow, London, Beirut, Sarajevo, Tel Aviv, Iraq, South Africa, Somalia and dozens of other datelines.

In summer 1981 he opened the first American television news bureau in Beijing.

In 1983 he was a witness to the assassination of Philippine leader Benigno Aquino.

In May-June 1989 he covered the student movement and military crackdown in China.

In 1991, he witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union.