Lidia Curanaj

A young girl with a big dream beats the journalism odds and earns a slew of accolades along the way.

Once upon a time, Lidia Curanaj was an 11-year-old student producing fake newscasts for a class project. Now she’s a two-time Emmy Award–winning Albanian American journalist, with three first-place Associated Press awards and two New York Press Club awards under her career belt. Curanaj’s love of journalism began when she was in the sixth grade and participated in a school program wherein students were asked to put together their own news broadcast. From that point forward, Curanaj knew she wanted to be a journalist. She dedicated her school years to achieving her goal, and while enrolled in college she held several internships in the field to build her resume. Her first was at Rolling Stone magazine and her last was with ABC’s The View with Barbara Walters.