Back From War, Into Tabloid Territory
Foreign Affairs Correspondent Lara Logan's Public Private Life
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 8, 2008; C01
After four years of living in Baghdad, war was taking its toll on Lara Logan.
As CBS's chief foreign affairs correspondent, she regularly risked her life by accompanying American forces in combat. But there were more personal strains as well: Her mother had died after a lengthy coma, she and her husband had long ago agreed to a separation, and, last November, she broke off an intense relationship with another journalist in Baghdad. Soon afterward, Logan started dating Joseph Burkett, a federal contractor stationed in Iraq who was separated from his wife back in Texas.
Now, having just moved to Washington with an expanded portfolio for the network, Logan finds her romantic life reduced to tabloid fodder. And there is a new complication: She recently discovered that she is pregnant.
"Nobody likes to read about themselves like that, especially the way it's been sensationalized," Logan says of the coverage that spread to the front page of the New York Post, which called her a "sexy CBS siren" and "in-bedded reporter." "I hated it. But I'm just going to rise above it and keep going." The baby is due in January, she says, and she is "looking forward to being a mom."
Logan, 37, says she and Burkett plan to get married eventually. Her divorce is slated to become final in two weeks, and Burkett's divorce trial is likely to end next month. But the case has turned decidedly messy, with Burkett's estranged wife Kimberly, the mother of their 3-year-old daughter, charging that Logan broke up her marriage.
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