Lara Logan Sex Scandal: CBS' New Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent At Center of Divorce War: Report

Update: For more details on the Logan's Baghdad love triangle — revealed to include CNN's Michael Ware — click here.

Lara Logan, who has been CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent since February 2006 and has reported from war zones for 17 years, was recently named Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for the network. But that's not the juiciest news of the week surrounding Logan, who made headlines last week after appearing on the "Daily Show" and slamming American coverage of the Iraq war.

According to a National Enquirer report, Logan is at the center of a bitter divorce between Joe and Kimberly Burkett. Joe Burkett is a U.S. State Department contractor who was in Baghdad alongside Logan, which is reportedly where the affair began. From the National Enquirer:

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, has been named as the "other woman" in a Texas couple Joe and Kimberly Burkett's bitter divorce.

Burkett's wife Kimberly, 32, was so distraught with his cheating that she took an overdose of Valium

Kimberly Burkett's attorney Susie Chmielowiec told The ENQUIRER, "Kimberly believes Lara stole her husband - and now they're trying to steal her little girl."

And in a twist that's as shocking as any story Lara has covered, sources are charging she also had another affair, and her two lovers got into a brutal battle over her in Baghdad!

Sources charge that the Emmy winning Logan began her affair with 36-year-old U.S. State Department contractor, Burkett in war-torn Baghdad.

The Enquirer further goes on to report that Logan was also involved with an unnamed "star CNN correspondent" and that Katie Couric, Logan's CBS News colleague, "blew a gasket" over the news of Logan's sex scandal:

"When [Couric] heard the allegations about Lara, she exploded," a source told The ENQUIRER.

"Katie's upset because it reflects badly on everybody at CBS, but particularly the women there,"

Click to read the entire National Enquirer article on the Lara Logan sex scandal.

Full release on Logan's CBS News promotion below:

June 25, 2008

LARA LOGAN IS NAMED CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT FOR CBS NEWS
AND WILL BE BASED IN WASHINGTON, D.C. WITH EXPANDED DUTIES

She Will Continue as a Correspondent for 60 MINUTES

Lara Logan, whose bold reporting from war zones over the past 17 years has earned her a prominent position among the world's best foreign correspondents, will become CBS News' Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and will be based in Washington, D.C., it was announced by Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports. The appointment is effective immediately.

Logan will expand her international reporting responsibilities to include foreign affairs and international security issues, as well as U.S. policy as it is made across government departments and agencies. She will continue to travel internationally to cover major stories.

"Lara is among the most talented and respected journalists in our industry," said McManus. "She is extraordinarily determined and courageous, but never fails to see and report the human side of conflict, including some of the most horrific stories of our time. Lara’s deep and varied experience around the world over the past 17 years positions her remarkably well for covering this expanded beat, which she will handle with the same fervor and dedication that our viewers have come to expect."

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Logan has been CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent since February 2006; she became a correspondent for 60 MINUTES the same year. Logan joined the Network in 2002 as a correspondent and a contributor to "60 Minutes II" (2002-04). She will continue to report regularly for the CBS EVENING NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC and will periodically appear on THE EARLY SHOW and FACE THE NATION, in addition to her 60 MINUTES duties.

Logan's daily reports have been an integral part of CBS News’ coverage of the war in Iraq, both before and after U.S. troops moved into the country. She was the only journalist from an American network in Baghdad when the U.S. military invaded the city, reporting live from Firdos Square as the statue of Saddam fell. Since then, she has spent the majority of her time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Logan broke the story of the abuse of special needs Iraqi orphans on the CBS EVENING NEWS in June 2007, a report that made headlines around the world. Also last year, she reported from Pakistan on the death of Benazir Bhutto and its aftermath.

Logan’s reports for 60 MINUTES have included a penetrating interview with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after the assassination of Bhutto; a rare one-on-one interview with Gen. John Abizaid when he was the Commander of United States Central Command; a report on the airport road in Baghdad, then the most dangerous piece of asphalt in the world; and a report on the U.S. military's strategy for retaking Tal Afar, an Iraqi city held by insurgents that became the blueprint for doing the same in other strategic towns.

Logan's reporting from the frontlines of Afghanistan and with the Green Berets searching for Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden appeared on "60 Minutes II" and on the CBS EVENING NEWS, THE EARLY SHOW and CBS News Radio, for which she served as a general assignment reporter. While reporting for a "60 Minutes II" story about the intense battle being waged at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 2005, Logan's vehicle, traveling with the U.S. military, hit a double-tank mine. The explosion seriously wounded two soldiers; she escaped with minor injuries. Her other "60 Minutes II" reports included an interview with the King of Swaziland, who was being sued by the mother of a girl who was taken to be his 10th wife, and a report on legalized assisted suicide in Switzerland.

Logan received an Emmy Award, an Overseas Press Club Award and an RTNDA/Edward R. Murrow Award for "Ramadi: On the Front Line," a powerful 2006 report on American troops under fire in Ramadi, Iraq, a piece Logan and her producer shot themselves while embedded with a U.S. military unit. She has also received five American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Awards: in 2008 for Outstanding Feature-Hard News for the Iraqi orphans story; in 2004 for Individual Achievement for Best Reporter/Correspondent; in 2003 for Best News Story for her CBS EVENING NEWS report on the attempted assassination of Afghan President Hamid Kharzi; in 2002 for Best News Story for her CBS News Radio coverage of the war in Afghanistan; and in 2000 for Best News Story for her CBS News Radio coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She received the David Bloom Award in 2008 from the Radio & Television Correspondents Association for excellence in enterprise reporting and the 2007 Association of International Broadcasters' Best International News Story Award for her report on the Taliban.

Before formally joining CBS News in 2002, Logan already had 14 years of journalism experience, including 10 years in the international broadcast news arena. She served as a correspondent for GMTV, the weekday morning news program of Great Britain's ITV (2000-02), and as a freelance correspondent for CBS News Radio, from which she occasionally appeared on the CBS EVENING NEWS. Logan reported on the war in Afghanistan, Middle East violence, the Mozambique floods, the land invasions in Zimbabwe and the India earthquake. Previously, she served in a variety of freelance assignments, including as a correspondent for ITN and Fox/SKY, an assignment editor for CBS News and ABC News in London, and an editor/producer for NBC, CBS and the European Broadcast Union (1996-99). Logan also served as a freelance correspondent for CNN (1998-99), covering the U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania, the conflict in Northern Ireland and the war in Kosovo, among other stories.

She got her start in broadcast journalism in Africa as a senior producer for Reuters Television (1992-96). Logan began her career as a general news reporter for the Daily News (1990-92) and the Sunday Tribune (1988-89), both located in Durban, South Africa.

Logan was born in Durban and was graduated from the city's University of Natal in 1992 with a degree in commerce. She also holds a diploma in French language, culture and history from the Universite de L'Alliance Francaise in Paris. In addition to French, Logan speaks Afrikaans and basic Portuguese.

Comments

[Trueheart]

What a resume! She's talented, intelligent, savvy, brave and very attractive. Too bad she messed with a married man. Logan is some kinda tough competition--I feel badly for the wife. No matter how much money she gets in a settlement, it will never make up for losing a husband and a marriage. I'm actually surprised to read that Lil' Lara has had time for an affair. She always seems to be in a flak jacket, jumping in and out of tanks and humvees and reporting under fire as she runs across rooftops and through bombed out buildings. I would have thought her emotional life consisted of short-lived sexual encounters with no commitments.

[Smithhammer]

This is important why? Just sad, trashy, exploitative reporting. Quite regurgitating the info-tainment crap and get back to being a NEWS source, or you've lost me.

[dtrain51]

This is the first time I am really ashame of Huff Post, using the NE as a source, Huff Post is beginning to sound like FAUX NOISE,just take anything and run with it.

[Horus]

Lara Logan is a stone cold fox.

[andyboy]

Whenever theres a story like this on HuffPo a bunch of overblown pseudo-int­ellectuals always make a great point of castigating HuffPo for including news like this.

Yet their sitting there sucking it right up along with everyone else.

It must be a tough job lowering your standards so you can check on who else is lowering their standards. Is that like slumming?

You hypocritical gasbags out there know who you are. Your just like O'Reilly. George Carlin would just love you and your sit in judgement of all wrong attitudes.

"I was reading the Enquirer the other day and I thought to myself ...what kind of idiot reads this stuff? They really need to raise their standards".

That's why I love HuffPo. You can watch all the self-proclaimed pompous little twits display their ignorance to the whole world.

[opinion8d]

I'm disappointed that Huff Post is using the Natl Enquirer as a source.

Since I live in MX my choices for US natl news are FOX or CBS. Both are undesirable. Couric's passive/ag­ressivenes­s with Lara Logan is pathetic. She will not pronounce her name correctly. Since Ms. Logan is not married or cheating on a husband, I think it more appropriate that the headline indicate in capital letters that the man is cheating on his wife. He's the one who took the vows. It's a non-story.

[iheardthisbefore]

Who cares about the private life of foreign correspondents anyway....
The only thing I care about is whether they are reporting factually and
in a forthright manner....­which she has done.
She's no Walter Cronkite..­...but she IS good at what she does on her
"day job".

[southafrica4obama]

Most female journalists fall in love with officials. Normal.

[andyboy]

I'm as outraged as Katie Couric. The nerve of some tart foreign correspondent being more attractive and inteligent then Katie! I'm just flumoxed I tell you. Get a leg wax Katie and hike that skirt up honey.

I roared with laughter at the image of the poor wife sitting back in America while her hunky hubby romps around the world getting laid. Poor baby. Spend his money honey! It's always the best revenge.

[JeanPaulSatire]

It would not surprise me if this story appeared right alongside "WMDs and Video Tapes of Secret bin Laden/Hussein Meetings Found!"

The National Inquirer? Really?

HuffPo, between your over-zealous censorship of posts (now limited to 250 words), absurd/totally wrong headlines, and questionable "journalistic" sources, the downhill slide has begun in earnest. It's not too late to reverse direction and reclaim the high ground -- if only you would!

[Dannydel]

Why the hell do you bother to log on then? Go watch the view.

[JeanPaulSatire]

Ah.. So you advocate giving up on something the moment it begins to be less than 100% of what it once was or what you hoped it would become?

I don't.

I believe that, rather than to give up on HuffPo, the better approach is to point out the problems so corrective action can be taken. I actually WANT HuffPo to live up to its potential.

Moreover, YOUR post has the odor of hypocrisy wafting from it. Does the following quote look familiar to you?

"...So please huffEds, before you you include meaningless, boring 'puff' pieces like this on your site, give a thought to those of us who wade through it and how relevant to anything it might be. And try to exclude tabloid writers who think that their issues are remotely interesting to anyone with a brain. After all it's called 'HuffPo' not 'PuffPo'."

It should; you wrote it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/24/can-a-haircut-change-your_n_108879.html

And yet YOU are still logging in and posting.

'Nuff said.

[jdenham]

She is a rival to Couric, with her appearance on the Daily Show she would be inline to the Anchor Chair at CBS. Seems like anytime someone talks about how bad the war is going on national TV they are discredited. Once is a coincidence, every time is a conspiracy. Most human beings have something in their past or personal life. But we are talking about the National Enquirer I am surprised there is not an Alien Baby involved.

[FilthyPerson]

"LARA LOGAN IS NAMED CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT"

How great is that.

[mainmonkey]

excellent.

[dtrain51]

Well, I see Ms. Couric doesn't have a problem with John McCain leaving his first wife after she waited for him for 5 yrs. and almost died,then he was having more than one affair and left his wife for a younger and rich little girl at the time, Ms. Couric pick and chose who to show such disgust at, just like the Repubs.

[Dannydel]

Pretty great...

[Benny59]

Did that story break on the cover next to "5-legged cow to run Olympic marathon" , or on the inside page next to "Explorer finds male pubic hair on Mars - proving origions of Man". The National Inquirer is certainly everyone's newspaper of record...w­hat a friggin joke!

[ugmold]

This is Corporate Media at work, Lara speaks out about how poorly the Wars are being covered and some clever so and so comes up with this as a distraction. Divorces happen everyday, this is not news. Huff has slid down the slither.

ugmold

[Gma11]

Hardly surprising circumstances in the context.

Would it be a big issue with any other reporter? How many are having/have had affairs? I suspect she is being singled out for this kind of treatment because she's a beautiful, intelligent, brave woman - and because she's lambasting American media coverage!! Primarily the latter.

[blackmouth]

You are absolutely right. She criticizes the Corporate Media and the National Enquire comes out with this story about her personal life. Seems kind of questionable. Go girl...don­'t let the Corporate Media stop your truth to power.

[drec1500Madrid]

Am I the only one who thinks that Lara Logan would be a far better anchor for CBS news than the pixie they have in there now...I was sold with her Daily Show appearance. Smart, down to earth and easy on the eyes to boot. I'd be tuning in nightly.

[TheyAllSuck]

You'd be tuning in nightly, and then she'd either disappear or be killed in an accident after making a "controversial" remark. They'd NEVER let Logan be the anchor unless she assured the suits she only wants to make millions of dollars, and she doesn't care what she tells America every night.