NewsGuild President and Noted Alumnus to Speak at April 9 Roy Reed Virtual Lecture

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Jon Schleuss, president of the NewsGuild labor union.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The School of Journalism and Strategic Media will host Jon Schleuss, president of the NewsGuild-Communication Workers of America labor union, for the 2020 Roy Reed Virtual Lecture at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, April 9.

The entire campus community and the public is invited to the lecture. Schleuss will speak about his efforts as NewsGuild president to protect journalists during the covid-19 pandemic. He is negotiating with lawmakers and corporate executives to obtain public funds to sustain newsrooms through the pandemic. A question and answer will follow.

An Arkansas native, Schleuss graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2013. In 2019, he was elected president of the NewsGuild, the largest union of journalists and other communications professionals in North America, which represents about 20,000 workers in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

Before the election, Schleuss was a graphics and data journalist at the Los Angeles Times from 2013-2019. At the L.A. Times, Schleuss analyzed and scraped data for news stories and visualizations, built online maps for features and breaking news. Previously, Schleuss served as online editor for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and a reporter and on-air host for KUAF 91.3.

"Jon Schleuss is a rare talent, an accomplished data journalist and now an organized labor leader, on the front lines of trying to save newsrooms from the corporate axe," said Rob Wells, assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Arkansas. "The University of Arkansas students and faculty will hear from a national figure about how organized labor trying to find solutions during an unprecedented crisis facing American journalism."

The lecture will be at 12:30 p.m. CT, Thursday, April 9, and will be available online the day of the event. Journalism students can submit questions in advance to their instructors. A chat function will be monitored during the presentation, which will be recorded.

About the Roy Reed Lecture Series: The Roy Reed Lecture Series is the featured event for the school's annual Journalism Days events. The series was created by the friends of Reed on the occasion of his retirement from the journalism faculty. Reed was a reporter for the New York Times from 1965 to 1978. He also taught journalism for 16 years at the U of A, where he stressed not only the importance of telling stories accurately but of telling them well, with special consideration for language