Lisa Ling: After I left The View, I had a total anxiety attack. My last day of the show, I went home and started crying, "What did I do! I just left this daytime talk show, this widely-viewed daytime talk show to go to National Geographic, this new cable network!" But ironically, that same night, I was having Chinese food with some of my friends and I opened my fortune [cookie]. It said “Now it’s time to explore” and I just had been named the new host of Explorer for National Geographic [laughs].

SM: [laughs] Now you’re covering many global women’s issues, from gang rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to China’s one-child policy. What do you think is the most important issue today that needs to be addressed?

Lisa Ling: God, there’s so many. When I first started working with Oprah, they said, "We would like you to focus primarily on issues pertaining to women and children." I said, "That’s cool, but I’m a journalist. I can cover any kind of story.” But what I came to learn in the process of working on these stories is women are half of the population and the givers of life, yet in so many cases they are so marginalized and don’t have a voice.