LEZLA GOODEN
Multimedia Journalist | Author | Community Activist
Lezla Gooden was born and raised in Mitchellville, Maryland. She now resides on the West Coast in Bakersfield, California where she serves as an on-air reporter for 23ABC News. There she has covered everything from breaking news, enterprise pieces, and human-interest stories. During her time, she has had over 20 of her stories selected to air nationally by CNN, ABC NEWS, Inside Edition, Yahoo, and others.
Before obtaining her first on-air job, in Roanoke, Virginia, Lezla was making her mark in Hampton, Virginia. In May of 2015, Lezla graduated with honors from Hampton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Broadcast Journalism from The Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications. She was the 2011 recipient of the coveted Emma L. Bowen Foundation Media Merit Scholarship, which enabled her to intern at C-SPAN for four consecutive summers.
She also interned with MSNBC's Politics Nation. She was nominated by her school to serve as "Ms. Scripps Howard" –the official ambassador for the School of Communications at Hampton. For three years, Lezla served as news anchor reporter in Hampton, Virginia for WHOV News. During her senior year, she also worked as a freelance reporter for Cox Cable in Chesapeake, Virginia. Upon leaving Hampton, she made her way back home to the Washington, D.C. area just in time for the 2016 presidential election. It was here that she enriched herself further in politics and journalism by working at the CNN D.C. Bureau with Inside Politics. Simultaneously, while working in the nation's capital at CNN, Lezla earned her Master's degree in Journalism from Georgetown University with honors in December of 2016.
Just a few years later in April 2020, Lezla was nominated as Alumna of the month by the Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies in Journalism (“Georgetown SCS”); highlighting her work during the COVID-19 outbreak and the 20 stories picked up by other national news networks. Georgetown SCS also featured her in its May 1, 2020 issue where she was spotlighted for her special coverage of COVID-19 in an article titled, Reporters Pursue the ‘Story of a Generation’.
She is also the co-author, with her father, also an alumnus of Georgetown University, Caesar Gooden, II, of a children's book, Spanky Goes to Camp: A Lesson in Obedience.