Kristie Lu Stout, Class of 1992: CNN Anchor

When people across the globe tune into CNN, a familiar face often appears on the screen. Award-winning news anchor and journalist Kristie Lu Stout has established herself as a fixture of CNN International over the past 20 years, appearing as an anchor for major stories and the host of several feature programs.

Growing up in the Bay Area as a Chinese American, Lu Stout’s diverse experiences helped shape her career in journalism. Lu Stout could understand but not speak Mandarin, so her parents enrolled her in an after school Chinese program at Miller Middle School.  

“My Chinese may not have been as good as the other kids, but I always felt this desire to learn how to speak the language,” Lu Stout said. “I was motivated to better understand what it means to be Chinese.”

At Lynbrook, Lu Stout immersed herself in various extracurricular activities related to communications, including ASB and the Epic, but her favorite activity was Speech and Debate, and she attributes much of her success to coach Shirley Keller-Firestone.

“She trained me to be a competitive speaker, and that really gave me the skills and the confidence to do my work today as a broadcaster,” Lu Stout said. 

After graduating from Lynbrook in 1992, Lu Stout studied psychology and communications at Stanford University. She then traveled to Beijing to take advanced Mandarin language courses at Tsinghua University, which opened her eyes to the burgeoning technology scene in China.

“I realized what an exciting place it was, full of change and opportunity,” Lu Stout said. “I went to China to prove my ‘Chinese-ness,’ but when I witnessed the dynamic change in mid-90s China, it made me want to return as a journalist.”

She reported on technology for Chinese media companies until 2001 when CNN hired Lu Stout because of her expertise in technology. Over the past two decades, she has hosted numerous tech programs and reported on major events in China, such as the Beijing Summer Olympics and the Trump-Xi Jinping summit. Lu Stout also hosts a program called “On China,” CNN’s first-ever regular series focused on the country. 

Throughout her career as a journalist, the most important lesson Lu Stout has learned is the significance of keeping up with the ever-changing world.

“After university, you have to stay smart,” Lu Stout said. “10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the line, you have to always embrace new ways of thinking, new technologies and dare to experiment.”