Julia Deng is an all-platform, all-terrain reporter with a passion for advocacy journalism and resourceful storytelling. She has a decade of experience writing, shooting and editing stories for television, radio, print and digital news outlets. Julia has walked through tear gas to document social justice protests and waded through oil patch sludge to secure exclusives. Her stories have led to swift corrective action at public agencies, school districts, companies and a public utility.

 

As communications director for the Los Angeles County Business Federation, widely known as "BizFed," Julia leads a media operation serving business organization members representing 420,000 employers with 5 million employees. Her around-the-clock news alerts and rapid-fire responses to local, state and federal policy developments have helped drive advocacy victories tied to housing, homelessness, pandemic recovery, education, health care, energy, water and transportation. Op-eds and letters to editors penned by Julia for BizFed members have appeared in CalMatters, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News and The Wall Street Journal. 

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During her time at WISH-TV in Indianapolis, Julia led coverage of regional and national stories for Nexstar stations, spotlighting humanity and hope in the wake of deadly tornadoes and delivering hours of live field reports following the Dayton mass shooting in 2019. As a member of WISH-TV's investigative unit, Julia tracked the rise of violent extremist groups, identified gaps in eviction protection and uncovered an issue in Indiana's unemployment insurance system that caused payment delays for more than 20,000 people.

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Julia is proudest of her stories that have opened hearts and minds, and righted wrongs. After she aired a story about a kindergarten student's "lunch shaming" ordeal, school administrators suspended the district's cold sandwich policy. Her reporting in Indianapolis also prompted a public utility to acknowledge and address a mistake that left a local couple without running water for 20 months.