Faces to watch 2006

LARA LOGAN

CBS News correspondent

While the TV news industry chatters about whether NBC’s Katie Couric will make the jump to the “CBS Evening News,” another female newscaster has been generating her own buzz at CBS: correspondent Lara Logan.

Based in London, the 34-year-old South Africa native’s dispatches from Afghanistan and Iraq have grabbed the attention of network officials, who plan to showcase her prominently when a new version of the evening newscast is launched next year.

“I think she’s the next Barbara Walters,” said anchor Bob Schieffer. “She’s the complete package. She’s absolutely fearless. She loves news, and she will go anywhere to get it.”

Logan – a former model who speaks French, Afrikaans and some Portuguese – got her start as a newspaper reporter in Durban, South Africa, then worked for Reuters Television, Britain’s ITV and CBS Radio News before landing a gig with the network in 2002. Since arriving, she’s jumped into the middle of several firefights. Logan was the only reporter for an American television network in Baghdad when U.S. troops invaded. On a 2003 trip to Afghanistan, the military vehicle she was riding in was blown upside down by a roadside mine. (She sustained minor injuries.) Most recently, she’s been back in Iraq, covering Saddam Hussein’s trial and the national election.

Said Schieffer: “The one problem we have with her is sometimes she’s too fearless.”