Lara Farrar
Foreign Correspondent
Lara Farrar is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years' experience, including as a foreign correspondent in China. Farrar studied journalism at Boston University and attended graduate school at the London School of Economics, where she obtained a master’s in Global Media and Communication. While in London, Farrar worked for CNN International and for Polis, a think-tank at the LSE. She then moved to Shanghai, where she completed a second master's, focused on Chinese media and China’s soft power, at Fudan University. In China, she wrote for CNN International, Women’s Wear Daily, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Economist and others. She also taught journalism at Fudan University and was nominated as part of the Asia Society’s prestigious Asia 21 Young Leaders Initiative. Farrar returned to her native Arkansas during the pandemic where she joined the Arkansas Democrat Gazette as an investigative reporter. She’s the recipient of a USC Annenberg data journalism fellowship.
Expertise
Supply chains, connectivity, trade corridors, information technology, media, soft power, China
Last modified: May 26, 2026
Recent projects
Courtesy: Gateway House
The Smackover Formation in south Arkansas and east Texas holds vast reserves of lithium — the critical mineral powering electric vehicles, energy storage systems, and data centres. If successfully tapped, those reserves could drastically reduce America's dependence on China. Arkansas has a stable, proven, predictable regulatory and statutory framework and familiarity with the production process. Policymakers in India would be wise to follow developments closely.
