A native of Kent, Eng­land, Bar­bara Lak­er grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri School of Jour­nal­ism and worked for sev­er­al news­pa­pers, includ­ing the Atlanta Jour­nal-Con­sti­tu­tion and the Dal­las Times Her­ald. In 1993 she joined the Philadel­phia Dai­ly News, where she has been a gen­er­al assign­ment reporter, an assis­tant city edi­tor, and an inves­tiga­tive reporter. She is the moth­er of two.