The Deadline Club Board of Governors voted unanimously to endorse Peter Szekely, who is running for one of two at-large director positions on the SPJ national board. As a former president of the Deadline Club, a longtime reporter for Reuters and a former journalism union leader, Peter has the right skills and experience to get things done for journalists at a national level and make decisions for the organization in the year ahead.
The voting period is from 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 27 to 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 29. All SPJ members will receive emails with voting instructions and login information.
Peter spent most of his career as a reporter with Reuters, starting in New York City covering energy and commodities markets in the late 1970s before moving to the agency’s Washington bureau where he had an array of beats and general assignments that took him to every branch of government.
Alongside his journalism career, Peter became an activist in The NewsGuild of New York, the union that represents most editorial staff at Reuters and many other news organizations. In 2007 he took a leave of absence from Reuters to become the Guild’s No. 2 officer, later becoming president over a 10-year span that was economically tumultuous for the news business and led to a nationwide movement of journalists seeking union protection.
He returned to Reuters in 2017 as a national correspondent and retired at the end of 2021.
Peter’s ties to SPJ go back to his time as a student in Boston in the mid-1970s when he joined the Northeastern University chapter, serving as treasurer and president, and helping to plan a regional conference that featured J. Anthony Lukas and Seymour Hersh as speakers. He was Deadline Club president from 2014 to 2015 after serving as treasurer and remains on the club’s advisory board.
The son of immigrant parents, Peter grew up in New Jersey and was among the generation of journalists inspired during the Watergate era by the power of good reporting and its importance to our democracy.
Learn more about the other candidates up for election this year at SPJ’s Election Central Meet the Candidates page. You can also watch an interactive candidates forum hosted by SPJ Region 1 Coordinator Chris Vaccaro with the candidates seeking national office.