Lakewood KLA is the local news organ for the town of Lakewood. It primarily functions as a TV station, but has an online presence as well.
It was Lakewood KLA who coined the term “Lakewood Slashings” to describe the spree of killings that plagued the town in October 2015. The term, like much of the organization’s reporting of the case, was originated by beat reporter Eliza Taylor, who defied editorial restrictions to pursue a series of successively improbable leads, endangering her life while earning her celebrity cachet that became her ticket out of town.
| ORGANIZATION | Lakewood KLA |
| Headquarters | “The Roost” 10 Old Mill Rd Lakewood |
| Notable Members | Eliza Taylor (Former reporter) |
| Appears In | The Story so Far, Vol. I |
History
Lakewood KLA originated in the mid-1930s as a radio network broadcasting from the “Old Mill” region, northeast of the town. It migrated to television relatively late, making the switch in the early 1960s. By the turn of the millennium, KLA was facing many of the same trials as its fellow travelers: so-called “new media”.
KLA was slow to adapt and didn’t truly invest in an online organ until the onset of the Obama years. It was at about this same time that firebrand journalist Eliza Taylor joined KLA’s staff, fresh out of J-school and with a lot to prove after being rejected from several more, to put it politely, metropolitan news rooms.
Eliza quickly became the “face” of Lakewood KLA, originally for no other reason than her own pretty face, which was a stark break from her predecessors. She cultivated a reputation as a relentless, tenacious and occasionally unethical journalistic force, always the first to the scene of a headline in the making.
These methods didn’t endear her to the local establishment, nor could they be said to have grown KLA’s audience. Eliza could be as uncompromising as she wanted, but she couldn’t make news out of thin air.
Fortunately, a huge headline was just around the corner.
The Lakewood Slashings
Eliza Taylor was the first reporter on the scene when teenagers Stacy Winters and Brock Carmichael were found dead. In her typical manner, her first order of business was butting heads with local law enforcement, including Sheriff Clark Hudson and Medical Examiner Maggie Duval. Unluckily for her, her cameraman Greg Peters errantly filmed too much of Brock’s mutilated corpse, necessitating their segment be pulled from the air.1
Undeterred, Eliza showed up at George Washington High School the next morning to interview the victims’ peers for the evening broadcast,2 only to be chased off by Vice Principal Kellerman, having only spoken to one student.3
Notable Personnel
Reporter and Journalist
Cameraman and Technician
Other Interpretations
Season 1 AU
In the Season 1 AU, the news organ Eliza works for is never named. Liz at one point generically refers to it as the “local news”, and that’s as far as it gets.4
Gallery
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