Journalist
An Emmy Award winning journalist, Lu has worked in the television news business as an anchor, reporter, and entertainment show host for over a decade. Currently, you can find her anchoring and reporting on KTLA in Los Angeles, California. Lu has co-hosted the Hollywood Christmas Parade twice with Entertainment Tonight's Mark Steines, and reported live from the Tournament of Roses Parade.
Lu began her television career at the CBS affiliate (WCSC) in Charleston, South Carolina. She then moved to San Antonio, Texas to work with the FOX affiliate (KABB) where she held the position of main anchor for several years. In 2003, the CBS affiliate hired Lu to create and host her own high energy entertainment program, which became known as Great Day SA. It became the #1 morning show in the city.
Lu's dream was to live and work in Los Angeles. She moved to the city in 2005 where she has covered floods, fires, and earthquakes. She has also interviewed celebrities such as Kanye West, Eva Longoria, Mario Lopez, Oscar De La Hoya, Willie Nelson, Larry King and Donald Trump. One of her highlights as a journalist was reporting live from the Democratic Headquarters in Los Angeles as Barack Obama was elected.
Lu has interviewed:
- George W. Bush
- Eva Longoria
- Matt Damon
- Kanye West
- Kathy Griffin
- Donald Trump
- Tom Arnold
- James Caviezel
- Jimmy Kimmel
- Fergie
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Mario Lopez
- Oscar De La Hoya
- Carlos Mencia
- Mary Lou Retton
- Bob Barker
- Willie Nelson
- Jenny McCartney
- Holly Hunter
- Larry King
- Deepak Chopra
- Bill Cosby
- Bob Hope
- Joel Osteen
- Weird Al Yankovic
- David Copperfield
- Scott Baio
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American Beauty
by Paul Allen
photography by Leslie McKellar
It is 6:45 p.m., downtown Los Angeles. While Lu Parker '90 and a cameraman cover a story for KTLA TV, they get a call from the station. Major wreck. Get there. During their 20-minute ride, she gathers as much information as possible. They arrive to see the back end of an 18-wheeler protruding from a restaurant, with a five-car pileup on the highway.
KTLA's Lu Parker covers our tsunami sign story
Our continuing coverage of the TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE terror signs along the Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles reaches a far wider audience tonight as KTLA news reporter Lu Parker is covering the story for the KTLA Prime News broadcast at 10 pm tonight-- and probably the morning show tomorrow.
Emmy-winning Lu, one of the most respected broadcast journalists in Los Angeles, picked up the story from the Tabloid Baby site and interviewed Tabloid Baby's editor for the report, along with the original Tabloid Baby, who first pointed out the frightening postings.
The story was also reported today in the Santa Monica Daily News.
(TABLOID BABY FUN FACT: Lu Parker was the 1994 Miss USA, succeeding 1993 Miss USA Kenya Moore, who starred in Cloud 9, the classic 2006 comedy from our pals at Frozen Pictures.)
.:: KTLA hiring former Miss USA as part of overhaul
/West Coast Update// This might be her first news job in Hollywood, but Lu Parker is no stranger to the  spotlight. Parker, who won the Miss USA pageant in 1994 before embarking on a career in local TV news, was set to begin as KTLA/Ch. 5's weekend anchor on Saturday as part of a news retooling at the historic WB affiliate. She also has an outside chance to move right to the early morning news, which anchor Sharon Tay could vacate since she has an MSNBC hosting gig in the works, according to the blog TVNewser. Parker, 36, most recently hosted a morning program in San Antonio for just over a year. At Ch. 5, she replaces Marta Waller, in her early 50's, at the anchor desk. The last time Waller lost her anchoring duties, she sued the station.
Waller, a 21-year station veteran who worked on O.J. Simpson trial coverage, was demoted  from anchor to reporter for Ch. 5's 10 p.m. news in 1996. She sued on the grounds of age and gender discrimination the next year after failed attempts to get her old position back, according to Variety magazine, claiming the station thought it was "inappropriate" for an older woman to anchor. The two parties came to a settlement and Waller ended up on the weekend anchor desk alongside station icon Larry McCormick, who died in August. Now, with Parker's arrival, Waller has been demoted again to weekday reporter, where she is set to concentrate on health stories and other features.
 Another public claim of discrimination came against Ch. 5 in May, when 20-year station veteran Warren Wilson, 69, hired a civil rights lawyer, threatening to sue in order to secure a new contract with the station. "Other reporters were given assignments all over Southern California, but Wilson has always been relegated to the 'black beat' - drive by shootings and South L.A. mayhem," attorney Melanie Lomax told the community Wave Newspapers, noting Wilson had never received a promotion while non-black employees with less seniority did. Wilson currently remains with the station.
 Meanwhile, the latest anchor to sit with stalwart Hal Fishman on weekdays has been cut from the desk. Lynette Romero, who had been with Ch. 5 for less than two years when she was named anchor in 2000, is apparently out on maternity leave but will return as invesigative reporter. Weekend sports anchor Leilia Feinstein, who joined the station in March 2003 and has been substituting at 10 p.m., gets the main co-anchor gig permanently. Ratings may be a reason for the change - Fox station KTTV/Ch. 11 bested Ch. 5 in households (3.0/5 to 2.9/5, Monday through Friday) and demos (1.7/5 to 1.3/4) in November, according to Variety.
 For her part, Parker brings to any cutthroat ratings-minded culture some perspective from the cutthroat pageant circuit. "The most important thing to remember is the judges aren't there to hurt, embarass, or humiliate you," she wrote in a 2000 book, "Catching the Crown: The Source for Pageant Competition." "Whenever delegates, at any pageant, ask for my advice, I tell them not to forget the judges are human." Parker, who grew up in South Carolina, graduated from the College of Charleston, got a graduate degree in education, and was serving as a high school English teacher when she competed the Miss USA pageant. After spending a year as Miss USA, Parker tried to get into TV or movies in Los Angeles, but was unsuccessful and returned to Charleston to try her hand at TV news, she said in an interview with the Charleston Post & Courier.
"I always wanted to live in Los Angeles, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to get a job just by being Miss USA. I knew I had to get out and get some experience. That's when I started working at [WCSC/Ch. 5]," Parker told the Post & Courier. In 1996, Lu, short for Frances Louise, without any previous news experience, began as a reporter on the education beat for the  market-leading CBS affiliate. "It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, going into that newsroom," Parker told CNN in a 2001 interview. "My news director prepared me by saying, 'We're a big dysfunctional family, we love each other one minute and hate each other the next. It's the next business.' But I also heard, 'Oh, she's Miss USA and she's never had any experience. How dare she?'" (The news director was Don Feldman: perhaps the most dysfunctional of all, he was imprisoned after pleading guilty to embezzling millions of dollars from the station.)
"The news director took a huge chance by hiring me because I wasn't really good right at first. ...I put my foot down and worked really hard. I can't imagine doing anything else now," Parker told CNN. After two years in Charleston, she moved on to Fox affiliate KABB/Ch. 29 in San Antonio, where she was weekend anchor and reporter before being promoted to the main 9 p.m. anchor slot in 2000. In 2003, CBS affiliate KENS/Ch. 5 hired her to be the centerpiece of a 9 a.m. local morning show, "Great Day SA," which she hosted up until last month.
She follows in the steps of other former beauty queens who have transitioned into TV news. Lee Meriwether, Miss America 1955, was see n on the  "Today" show in the Dave Garroway era. Tawny Little, Miss America 1976, was a local news personality in Los Angeles for more than two decades, anchoring on KABC/Ch. 7, KCAL/Ch. 9, and KCOP/Ch. 13. Jineane Ford, who became Miss USA in 1980 when her predecessor won the Miss Universe competition, was a primetime anchor at KPNX/Ch. 12 in Phoenix and remains at the station today in a lesser role. A group of more recent Miss Americas also went into TV news - Gretchen Carlson, 1989, of the "Saturday Early Show" on CBS; Debbye Turner, 1990, "Early Show" contributor; Marjorie Vincent, 1991, former anchor in Peoria, Ill., and Columbus; and Leanza Cornett, 1993, cable host formerly of KTTV/Ch. 11 in Los Angeles. -- 1/3/05
"Be the change you wish to see." Gandhi |
