Meet Our Officers

Susan DeCarava | President

Now in her second term as President of The NewsGuild of New York, Susan DeCarava is known for her innovative and transformative leadership, guiding theGuild through economic and professional challenges in the media industry, and confronting the difficulties presented by COVID-19, pay inequity, and new technologies. Elected president at the beginning of 2020, she took office with the most diverse slate in the union’s history. The first Black woman to hold the office of Local President, Susan and her reform slate ushered in a renewed commitment to member-led collective action to build worker power, diversity in Guild-represented workplaces and bargaining progressive contracts.

 

Susan has been transformative to the Guild, ushering in unprecedented growth through intensive organizing, setting new industry standards, doubling the number of active members and challenging a “business labor” service model that undercuts worker power. Known for her creative and nuanced approach to mobilizing, negotiating contracts, and supporting members, she is respected both at the bargaining table and in newsrooms citywide. As a fierce advocate for workers Susan also serves on the Advisory Board for the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies. 

 

Before formally beginning her union career as a Local Representative for the New York Guild in 2008,  Susan organized her previous workplace, the Writers Guild of America, East, where she mobilized her coworkers in against an anti-union campaign, fought to increase wages, to eliminate pay inequity between the administrative and professional staff, and to preserve paid sick leave.

 

A native New Yorker, born in the great borough of Brooklyn, Susan carries with her a cherished family history of artists, educators, laborers, farmers and distinguished professionals. They instilled a commitment to standing up for equality and being of service. She is grateful for the opportunity to carry on that tradition and give back to the union community that has sustained her throughout her professional career.

Anthony Napoli | Secretary-Treasurer

Anthony Napoli is currently the Guild’s Senior Representative and chief negotiator, a role in which he provides strategy advice and guidance for other reps during bargaining. He draws on 13 years of experience as a Guild Representative as well as his time serving as shop steward, grievance chair and first vice chair for The New York Times unit.

Anthony has been a member of every bargaining committee at The New York Times since 1993, first as a rank and file member and then as a negotiator. Anthony also previously served as the Guild’s elected treasurer from September 2015 to January 1, 2017. At The Times, Anthony worked his way up from the kitchen to the delivery department, ultimately working as an advertising representative. Anthony has served as a trustee for both medical and pension plans that serve Guild members at The Times and Consumer Reports. Anthony attended Long Island University.

Hilary Russ | First Vice President

Hilary Russ has been a journalist for nearly 20 years and has been a proud Guild member since joining Reuters in 2012. She currently serves as First Vice President of the NewsGuild of New York and Grievance Co-Chair at Thomson Reuters, where she covers the fast food industry. Originally from Indianapolis, she went to college in St. Louis, where she later dabbled in social work, retail and food services before finding journalism later in life. She began as a freelancer, fact-checking and writing features for publications like City Limits magazine and Gotham Gazette. She interned at Newsday and later covered cops and courts at the Cape Cod Times. She wrote about white collar crime, the U.S. Supreme Court and corporate bankruptcies for Law360 before it joined the Guild — and boy did that company need a union! She loves cats, shopping for vintage clothes, rescuing furniture from the trash, bird-watching, hiking, boxing, house music, cooking and helping workers find their collective voice and win better conditions. She earned a master’s degree from the New School for Social Work and another from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Juan Carlos Rodriguez | Second Vice President

Juan Carlos Rodriguez is a senior environmental law reporter at Law360 and serves as unit chair. He was involved in the shop’s unionization effort from early on and was a member of the organizing and bargaining committees. Before arriving at Law360 in 2011, he worked for five and a half years at the Albuquerque Journal and prior to that spent a little over a year at the national bureau of The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. He has a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree from The Evergreen State College. A native of the Pacific Northwest, JC was born Coos Bay, Oregon, and grew up in Olympia, Washington. He has also lived in Los Angeles. He’s a guitar player (currently without a band), an avid beachgoer and ocean swimmer, a bicyclist and a motorcyclist. He lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Vacant | Third Vice President